As North Texas enters storm season, emergency managers in Euless are upgrading potentially life-saving technology in the city’s Emergency Operations Center.
“We’ve been in this building since 2001 and this technology has been piecemealed together over the years,” Assistant Police Chief Gary Landers said. “The current equipment in the room is individual pieces. It does not communicate with each other.”
City Council approved the purchase of the equipment and a vendor has been selected.
“We are now in the purchase order process. As soon as we get our purchase order, we will start ordering equipment,” Landers said. “We are replacing TVs. We are using more touchscreen technology and some more up-to-date weather apps so that we can make sure that we are getting the best and most accurate data that we can at the time."
The Emergency Operations Center is the brain of emergency services during a disaster.
“Any time an event happens that would overwhelm the city resources or take numerous amounts of city resources,” Landers said. “The Emergency Operations Center is where you would bring all of the decision-makers from the different disciplines from within the city. You can put them in one room and collectively deal with situations.”
The council budgeted $95,000 for the equipment.
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“Part of the upgrade to the EOC is also to record and disseminate public education. It will have camera capabilities,” Landers said. “We will be able to broadcast that information across the city’s cable channel so that we can make sure to get out the information about what to do.”
When the purchase order is complete, the upgraded EOC should be installed, upgraded and ready for use within 30 days.
