Fair’s new home also will be emergency shelter

The State Fair of Virginia's new home in Caroline County will serve as an emergency shelter in a catastrophe, such as a hurricane or terrorist attack requiring a mass evacuation.

The designation is part of a 20-year agreement signed two years ago in exchange for a one-time state appropriation of almost $2.4 million to help build the main exhibition hall at The Meadow Event Park.

"It was a win-win," said Robert P. Crouch Jr., assistant to the governor for commonwealth preparedness, who helped broker the deal between the State Fair of Virginia Inc. and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management in December 2007.

The fair is scheduled to open Sept. 24 in its new location, an $81 million facility at the former Meadow Farm, a 360-acre estate within a mile of Interstate 95 in southern Caroline.

However, the two-week fair will have to live with the potential threat of an emergency -- a terrorist attack in Northern Virginia or a big hurricane in Hampton Roads, for example -- that would require the site to house thousands of people evacuated out of harm's way, as well as their household pets.

"That is a possibility, but I think very remote," said Curry Roberts, president of the State Fair. "If it was something that catastrophic, we're obviously going to cooperate with the commonwealth."

The agreement arose from a meeting between Roberts, a former secretary of economic development under Gov. Gerald L. Baliles, and William H. Leighty, then-chief of staff to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine.

Leighty, who retired two years ago after 29 years in state government, had served as a volunteer administrator on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina devastated the region in 2005.

He said he immediately saw the potential for using the site in the same way he had seen fairgrounds in Louisiana used to house evacuees from New Orleans and other stricken areas.

"I said, 'That is the floor plan for the emergency center we just built in Baton Rouge,'" Leighty recalled last week.

Katrina changed the way state and local officials prepare for hurricanes and other disasters. "We learned from Katrina that you need everything, particularly if it's that bad," Leighty said.

In Virginia, emergency managers in Richmond, Norfolk and other localities led the way in trying to negotiate arrangements for potentially thousands of people who would need inland shelter and services if a big storm struck the coast.

Initially, Richmond proposed a plan to use the fair's old home, the Richmond Raceway Complex in Henrico County, and Kings Dominion in Doswell as staging areas for evacuees who would be diverted to emergency shelters in the city.

The proposal died because of opposition from Henrico and the amusement park, but Richmond struck a different deal in 2007 to use St. Paul's Baptist Church in eastern Henrico as a staging area for people evacuated from Norfolk.

The state ultimately took the lead in designating public buildings around Virginia as emergency shelters, as well as securing the new fairgrounds as a central shelter and staging area. Crouch said the state has identified shelters statewide with a total capacity of 20,000 beds.

"I'm just glad it got done," said Benjamin W. Johnson, former emergency-management coordinator in Richmond.

The centerpiece of the Meadow Farm complex is the Farm Bureau Center, a 75,000-square-foot building with about 64,000 square feet of open exhibition space that could house almost 1,500 people. The state appropriation, part of the general fund in the 2007 budget, helped pay for the $10 million building, Roberts said.

The memorandum of understanding with the state requires the building to have a kitchen capable of preparing up to 6,500 meals a day and restrooms that could handle up to 2,200 people.

The building also has to be wired to accommodate a generator for backup power, and be built to withstand winds up to 90 mph and snow loads of up to 20 pounds per square foot.

The agreement also includes two paved pads, each about 20,000 square feet, that could be used for tents or other temporary structures to shelter household pets. State officials say they are working on an updated agreement for animal sheltering.

Finally, the park has about 10 acres of parking that could be used for staging emergency-response operations, Roberts said.

"As a citizen, I'm glad the agreement exists," Roberts said, "but I hope they never have to use it."

Contact Michael Martz at (804) 649-6964 or .