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| 1/26/2010 8:00:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | County working on plans for emergency ops center
It's not going to be a bunker or a bomb shelter, but Williamson County government is planning to construct a fortified $18 million emergency operations center scheduled to be open by 2013.
Planning for the facility - funded by certificates of obligation the Commissioners Court issued in 2006 - has been ongoing and continues, said Director of Emergency Services John Sneed.
"I'm excited about it," Sneed said. "It's one of those goals I've been working on for a long time. The goal is to have it up and running 36 months from now. We're still in the needs assessment phase."
Sneed said a committee of public safety officials, joined by architects and builders, has studied at least three similar EOC facilities. The other local EOCs are operated by Round Rock city government (in the police station), Bell County and Austin/Travis County.
"I'm sure there is going to be more give and take between all of us," Sneed said, referring to committee members.
County officials are working with Moman Architects in Round Rock and California-based Leach Monroe Architects, which according to a news release from Moman, has designed more than 50 emergency command centers throughout the U.S.
"A quick and coordinated response is vital to saving lives and property in a major disaster," Howard Leach, of Leach Monroe Architects, said in the release. "The Williamson County [facility] is being designed with ... user-friendly, reliable operating systems and durable construction to enhance interagency cooperation and sustainability under difficult circumstances."
Put more simply, Sneed said Williamson County wants a sturdy structure that will be able to withstand a tornado of at least F2 intensity - one with winds reaching 150 mph.
It is also possible the county might opt for a building that can withstand F3 tornados, which have recorded wind speeds of up to 200 mph.
The sturdier the building, the more it's construction will likely cost, Sneed said.
But what of the F5 tornado - the most severe and destructive category of all - that devastated Jarrell in 1997, with winds of approximately 300 mph and 27 deaths recorded?
Nothing people can build - at least nothing that's not underground - can stand up to a tornado like that, Sneed said.
Williamson County's planned EOC will replace makeshift facilities officials utilize at the county's juvenile detention center, located off the Inner Loop in Georgetown.
Sneed said he and others have used a conference and training room at the juvenile detention center, such as when Williamson County prepared to welcome refugees from Hurricane Ike in September 2008.
He said the preparation process becomes time consuming when they have to set it up from scratch - even taping telephone and computer wires to the floor - whenever it's put to use.
Also, the county's future EOC will also house 911 emergency dispatch, which is outgrowing its current headquarters at the sheriff's office in Georgetown, Sneed said.
Among the questions yet to be decided is where to build the new EOC.
For example, Sneed said, if there is a hazardous chemical spill on Interstate 35, it will not be a good idea to have the EOC right off the Interstate and downwind.
He said the county owns several parcels of land and one of them will probably be the future EOC site.
"I think we should have a site within the next 90 days," Sneed said. "We need the professionals to say: 'This is or isn't a good site - and why.'."
Sneed said he anticipates the committee making a report to the Commissioners Court this spring.
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