NORFOLK, Va. – The Norfolk District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has assembled field assessment teams tasked with evaluating existing facilities for the possible conversion into alternate-care-sites in Virginia.
The District teams, at the request of FEMA and the commonwealth of Virginia, is evaluating facilities within its military construction boundary area, which encompasses most of the state outside of a few counties surrounding Washington D.C.
District personnel are working closely with FEMA, state and local partners to best facilitate, quick response should the need arise to have additional alternate-care-sites constructed.
“Our team of dedicated employees are working diligently to meet the call of our nation and help tackle the problem that this virus has created for our national healthcare network,” said Lt. Col. Alexander Samms, Norfolk District deputy commander.
Overall USACE has received five FEMA Mission Assignments (MAs) totaling $357.8 million, and USACE has more than 250 personnel providing support. Two of the FEMA MAs ($5.6 million) are for national activation and to provide initial planning and engineering support nationwide to address possible medical facility shortages in the U.S. due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. One of the FEMA MAs ($350M), issued for New York ONLY, is for facility assessments, planning, engineering, design, contracting, and construction of alternate medical sites.
Information pertaining to specifications and implementation of the alternate care sites is available on the web at https://www.usace.army.mil/Coronavirus/Alternate-Care-Sites/
Contractors who may be interested in working on these sites throughout Virginia, should the need arise, are asked to review the memo from the USACE director of Contracting on what you can do to help at https://www.usace.army.mil/Media/News-Archive/Article/2120990/contracting-in-disasters-what-companies-can-do-to-help/. They are also asked to provide their latest capabilities briefings to Ms. Cherie Kunze, the District’s deputy for Small Business at cherie.a.kunze@usace.army.mil.
During emergencies, USACE is the federal government's lead public works and engineering support agency, and given its extensive work in building medical facilities for its military stakeholders is uniquely qualified to tackle this engineering challenge.
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