August 23, 2007
Lowndes County - When a disaster strikes, an Emergency operation center is the nerve center for emergency response. "Its an area where all the local agencies and local government come together in one spot so we can better coordinate our efforts," say Lowndes County EMA Director Ashley Tye.
With this year's massive wildfires and deadly tornadoes, a command center was often hard to come by and could have aided emergency personnel. "We just had to meet whenever we could find a spot," says Tye.
"I would think if we had a center already over the past few years, especially with the wildfires, we could have provided some assistance there as far as a place for their officials to meet," adds Paige Dukes, the Public Information Officer for the Lowndes County Commission Office.
So now the Lowndes County Commission hopes to open an emergency operation center of their own. "Having this facility will allow us to bring everyone together under one roof and get on the same page," Tye says.
It would house state of the art communication, mapping and storm tracking technologies. "A lot of wall displays, a lot of large monitors where we can track storms a lot better."
And provide mutual aid to a neighboring community in need. "If a major disaster happened and they weren't able to use their facilities and needed to relocate they could come use our facilities and vice versa."
But the construction of the four million dollar project relies on the passage of the upcoming SPLOST vote scheduled for September 18.
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