Grand Ledge City Hall can now serve as an emergency shelter for the community in the event of extreme weather.
That was made possible by the purchase of a larger generator, 175 kilowatts, big enough to support the whole City Hall building in a power outage.
In the event of an emergency, there would be designated rooms that provide things like free Wi-Fi and heated or air-conditioned facilities.
"We're a very diverse community, but we do have many older people in town. Some people that may not be able to afford quick repairs if there's an outage that takes power lines down and things like that. So, we wanted to be sure that we could keep our citizens safe," said Mayor Thom Sowle.
Pre-covid, they would be able to house hundreds of people. While the COVID-19 pandemic continues, Sowle said, it's hard to say how many people they would be able to take in.
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