Residents curious about Tooele County’s central hub of information and decision-making in case of a widespread emergency will have the opportunity to tour the facility tonight and Wednesday.
Tooele County Emergency Management is hosting two open houses of its Emergency Operations Center at 15 E. 100 South tonight and tomorrow from 5 – 8 p.m. TCEM Director Bucky Whitehouse said it’s the first time the facility has been opened to the community in that manner in about five years.
“What we hope citizens will see is the benefit to the overall response to the community to know that there is a building that will be working on their behalf, helping the first responders,” Whitehouse said.
The 16,000 square-foot facility also houses the county’s dispatch center. The EOC was constructed in 2009 for $6 million, with $2.5 million in county funds, $2 million from Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program and $1.5 million in other grant money.
The building sits on a 6,000-gallon water tank, has a backup generator with 4,000 gallons of reserve diesel fuel and has a backup propane heating system. Whitehouse said the facility is designed to withstand up to an 8.0-magnitude earthquake. A 7.0-magnitude earthquake is the strongest anticipated in Tooele Valley.
“Essentially power, lights and everything else could go out for the entire city and this building is the one building that will stay up and stay functioning,” Whitehouse said.
The capabilities of the EOC mean the facility is the back-up meeting place for the state of Utah, Salt Lake County and various government agencies, according to Whitehouse.
In case of an emergency, the main activity will happen in the policy room, a conference space where elected officials meet, and the operations room, where the response is coordinated. The operations room contains 26 computer response stations, a large display board with up to four live streams and is the space that first responder agencies send representatives in case of a disaster.
Whitehouse said the operations room was the central logistics hub during the Stockton fire in July 2014. From the tech-heavy room, water supplies for the town were secured, fuel was organized for first responder vehicles and food was coordinated for responders and volunteers assisting with the blaze.
In an emergency, each agency involved in the response will send one representative to the EOC, Whitehouse said. For the Stockton fire, representatives from the various fire departments were on hand, as well as the police agencies organizing evacuations and the Tooele County Health Department once the town’s water supply was contaminated.
“For every responder we had on the ground out to Stockton, we had one of their counterparts in this room assisting them and getting what they needed,” Whitehouse said.
The operations room also has access to feeds from cameras located at the county’s dispatch towers and traffic cameras throughout the county. The facility also receives information from a seismic station and the numerous weather stations spread throughout the county.
TCEM can also access 16 different sign boards in the county to relay information about evacuations, road closures and other pertinent information for motorists, Whitehouse said.
Despite the capabilities of the EOC, Whitehouse said the facility isn’t designed to take on evacuees in an emergency.
“The building by itself has the ability to sustain about 50 to 60 personnel for five to seven days all on its own,” he said. “The community has arrangements or has plans already in place for shelters to be set up in schools, public or government buildings and some of our faith-based partners.”