CULLMAN, Ala. – On Sunday, April 12, local residents seeking places to park their cars ahead of a storm predicted to bring hail and possible tornadoes came to downtown Cullman, only to find decks at the Folsom Center, the old Wells Fargo building and the Cullman Area Chamber of Commerce full of vehicles from multiple area automobile dealerships. Transporters filled every lower level space behind the Chamber, then filled in the driving lanes with even more cars. Witnesses reported seeing vehicles being loaded into the deck as early as Saturday afternoon.
Among complaints reported to the City of Cullman were concerns from citizens with pets who could not take them to storm shelters, and from citizens with disabilities who might have trouble getting from their vehicles into and out of a storm shelter. More cited the COVID-19 virus as reasons they did not want to go to shelters.
At the Cullman City Council meeting Monday following the Easter storms, Police Chief Kenny Culpepper acknowledged the issue and talked about plans the police department has for future weather events, noting that the deck (behind the Chamber) is a free public facility, and that it is not designated as, nor designed to be, a storm shelter.
Of the public deck, Culpepper told The Tribune, “We don’t recommend the deck for a tornado shelter, because it’s not a tornado shelter. It’s not designed to be one, it’s not certified to be one, and in fact, could be dangerous because of its design.
“We have two tornado shelters: one on the south end on Beech- the Beech Center- and one on Sportsman Lake Road. We have one on the north side and one on the south side, which are staffed with a law enforcement officer and a fire medic. Those are the safe places to go, where we’ve got somebody there to help you if you do. We had people that said they wanted to go to the parking deck because they had medical issues and didn’t want to get out to get in a shelter. And, obviously, with the COVID-19, there are concerns about being in an enclosed area with a bunch of other people, but over this last storm, we were at about 25-30% capacity in both shelters. So, we had plenty of room, and we were handing our face masks and asking people to physically isolate and didn’t have any issues with it. We feel like we can accommodate everybody’s concerns.
“As far as the parking deck goes, the biggest problem was that, after all the parking places were full, that people continued to go into the deck, into the driving lane all the way around it- and somebody else would come in behind them, somebody else behind them- and eventually, it was so jammed in there that nobody could move and nobody could get out. If there had been an emergency, it would have been hard to get in to do anything.
“So what we’re going to do for this upcoming inclement weather is to monitor the capacity of the deck, and once the actual parking places are full, is to go ahead and just close it so that no more can come in, just like any other commercial deck would do once it’s full.”
The police department has talked to local car dealerships about what happened, but Culpepper said that the free-access public parking deck will remain available on a first-come, first-served basis.
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