Emergency Services staff likes life in old Climbing Hill school

Two old schools, actually. A three-story structure built in 1916 as the Climbing Hill Public School continues to get a daily does of activity as does the "new" Climbing Hill School structure, built in 1939.

The site is one of several schools in rural Woodbury County that's enjoying a second run as a re-purposed facility. An implement company, for example, operates out of the old school in Oto. The Anthon Community School has become the Anthon Community Center.

Holly Industries is a business that operates in the old gym/auditorium at Holly Springs. There's a church serving folks in the old school at Correctionville.

"This is a good reuse of a building," says Brown, who serves as FEMA, Disaster and Emergency Services director for Woodbury County. "The Woodbury County Sheriff's Department used this as a substation and we joined them in 1993."

The Sheriff's Deaptment no longer has operations based in the old school at Climbing Hill, a site that appealed to Brown and his staff for its central location within the county. Response times from this location, he notes, are much quicker for many locations than they would be from a site in Sioux City, which is on the county's far west edge.

Up to 2011, Woodbury County leased the Climbing Hill Public School structure from the Woodbury Central Community School District, a consolidated district of Moville and Climbing Hill that gets its name from its central location in Woodbury County.

The last classes were held in this building a quarter-century or so ago.

Woodbury Central turned the property over to the county three years ago. Besides the building there are about 9 acres on this site in Climbing Hill, an unincorporated town of 123 residents.

While the site is completely compliant under the Americans with Disabilities Act, Brown notes the county and his staffers continue to work at that goal.

"Each year we peck away on an improvement plan here," he says, adding that, in his mind, it is a better use of taxpayer funds to make incremental improvements in smaller chunks over spending a large amount in one budget year.

Heating costs, for example, once cost the county some $16,000 at this site. Those costs have been pared to $10,000 annually, thanks to a recent boiler replacement effort.

Holes in the roof have been repaired; select classrooms have been carpeted and painted and now host training classes regularly. The site is also a meeting site for mayors in the county, as well as the landfill commission. It's an election site and also hosts gatherings of township trustees and more.

Several windows have been updated and the classrooms have gone to white boards, replacing the outdated slate chalkboards.

The old school is staffed 24/7 every day of the year, a scheduling demand that requires an old home economics area to be renovated to sleeping quarters for staffers.

"Every night someone sleeps here as our department has been staffed around the clock for 33 years," Brown says of a unit that responds with every emergency department in Woodbury County.

The school doubles as a backup Emergency 911 site as well, in the case that the county's main nerve center at Western Iowa Tech Community College is ever compromised.

"We can run limited 911 dispatch from here if that event arises," Brown says.

The old gymansium still has its stage and baskets, but basketball and volleyball games are long gone. The floor space is taken up with all sorts of emergency vehicles, ranging from a rescue boat to a trailer that can house and care for pets displaced in an emergency.

The stage contains dozens of units of decontamination supplies and equipment, medical supplies and more.

There's also a small fire truck and a mass casualty response trailer, one of four located in Woodbury County.

Ultimately, Brown says, the 1919 three-story school may come down, as the top two floors are only used for storage (second floor) and some fire and EMS training (third floor). Those floors, as can be expected, still cause some budget pains throughout winter. In its place, Brown notes, he'd like to see an energy efficient garage erected to house various response units and supplies.

"We've had an engineer look at the two areas (the separate school structures) and they can be separated," Brown says. "We have no desire to eliminate the newer areas. We've tried to make good use of this space while being good stewards."

Brown says that, on occasion, former students who attended school in Climbing Hill stop by to see how Woodbury County's Emergency Management and Emergency Services Department is using their former educational center.

Says Brown, "We're proud of what we're doing here."