Federal Grant Approved For Emergency Operations Center

By Andrew Gorosko

The town will receive a $100,500 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant to be used toward covering the costs of creating a new emergency operations center on the Fairfield Hills campus.

Town Emergency Management Director Bill Halstead said April 15 that interior renovation work is continuing on the 3,100-square-foot building at the campus, which is being converted for use by the town as an emergency operations center

The building at Fairfield Hills currently undergoing the conversion is commonly known as the “chiller plant.” It is located between Canaan House and Cochran House. The building contained the equipment that was used for summertime cooling at those two residential buildings at the former state psychiatric hospital. The town started work on the conversion project in March 2008.

The town currently has an emergency operations center located in the Sandy Hook Firehouse on Riverside Road. When the building conversion is completed at Fairfield Hills, the center will be located there.

Mr Halstead said that plans call for opening the emergency operations center at Fairfield Hills early this summer.

Mr Halstead said the $100,500 grant will be used with other grant money toward the project. Other designated grants for the project equal $243,000, he said.

Besides the $343,500 in grants, the town is providing certain services to get the new center into operation, he said.

The $101,500 grant will be used for to provide a security surveillance system for the building, motorized window shutters, information technology equipment, computers, a projector, a power supply, and display equipment, among other items.

“It’s going to be a big asset for the town,” Mr Halstead said of the emergency operations center.

The new operations center will include a staff room where telephones and information processing equipment will be used, a radio room for communications equipment, and a video conferencing room. The videoconferencing facilities would allow authorities in the region to have both visual and sonic communications during emergencies.

The operations center most often would be put in use during weather-related emergencies. Other possible uses would be for incidents such as gasoline tanker accidents involving fires, and train derailments in which toxic chemicals are spilled.