After years of waiting for funding, the U.S. Coast Guard’s $23.8 million rescue swimmer training facility at the Elizabeth City base is finally beginning to take shape.

Construction crews have nearly finished digging a giant hole in the ground, and plan to start pouring a concrete foundation next month. The project is expected to complete by October 2011.

“We are thrilled to get this state-of-the-art facility,” Master Chief Lewis Hart said during a recent tour of the base. “It’ll be second to none once this thing is up and running.”

The new 50,000-square-foot facility will feature two indoor pools, which Hart prefers to refer to as “tanks.” One tank will be

25 meters by 50 meters for rescue swimmer training. The other tank will be 30 feet by 60 feet and be used to train pilots and crews how to escape from helicopters that have to ditch in the water.

The tanks will be equipped with all“the bells and whistles” to simulate adverse weather and water conditions, says Cmdr. Nick DeLaura, facilities engineer for the Base Support Unit on the base.

“It’s going to have the wind. It’ll have a wave generator in there,” DeLaura said. “So, it’ll really give (helicopter crews) a real good picture of what they can kind of expect out in the field when they go out there.”

The new facility will be a vast improvement over the base’s current rescue swimmer training facility — a pool originally built for recreational purposes. The pool is so shallow, rescue swimmers training to leap from helicopters currently have to get their jumps in at Navy facilities in Norfolk, Va.

Hart said the Coast Guard had tried for years to obtain funding for a rescue swimmer training facility. He recalled the service came close to netting some $13 million some eight or nine years ago, but the funding source dried up.

Hart credits the Coast Guard’s performance during the rescue of stranded residents of New Orleans and the Gulf coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as one factor in the federal government’s decision finally to appropriate the funds.

“It basically showcased us,” Hart said. “And it put rescue swimmers on the map.”

But Hart also credits the 2006 movie “The Guardian,” which starred Kevin Costner, with helping the Coast Guard make the case for the rescue swimmer facility. Parts of the movie were filmed at the Elizabeth City base.

The OAK Group of Camden, N.J., is the general contractor on the rescue swimmer training facility.

Karl Schultz, a superintendent with Henderson Inc., of Williamsburg, Va., a subcontractor on the project, said the excavation phase has employed approximately 15-20 workers. Schultz anticipates the work force will grow to anywhere from 30-70 as the project moves forward.

The swimmer training facility is actually only one of three construction projects on the base either under way or about to get under way.

Just steps away from the swimmer facility, a concrete slab has been poured for a pre-fabricated metal building that will house a new base exchange, mini-mart and styling shop.

The 13,000-square-foot building will replace the current exchange and mini-mart facilities. Construction on the $3.5 million project is expected to be complete by the start of October, DeLaura said.

The current mini-mart building will be demolished, but the blue metal building now used for the exchange will be used for other purposes.

First Light of Virginia Beach is the contractor in charge of the project.

To the immediate northeast of the exchange will be the home of a third project — a $36 million barracks and galley facility.

The barracks, which will have a capacity of 291, will be more than 64,000 square feet and be three stories high. The galley will be more than 9,000 square feet and be capable of serving anywhere from 151-250 people.

Bid proposals are due early next month, and Coast Guard officials hope to award a contract by August, DeLaura said. Construction could start sometime in December or in January 2011, with the project being completed by 2012, he said.

Funding for the project will come from federal stimulus monies.

The current plan is to demolish the current barracks facility which dates back to the 1960s. One of the major problems with the current barracks facility is its location.

“It’s kind of sandwiched in between an industrial area and an operational area, where the runways are, where all the helicopters take off and land,” DeLaura said.

That makes it more difficult for Coast Guardsmen billeted there to get some shut-eye.

By William F. West
Tuesday, May 25, 2010,br /> dailyadvance.com