Hurricane readiness gets a boost

If a hurricane takes aim, Broward emergency officials say a beefed-up operations center will help them save lives.

With the peak part of hurricane season just now arriving, emergency managers have unveiled $800,000 in new technology they’ll use to better track storms, identify where emergency crews are needed

and ensure that shelters are staffed and functioning.

They’re also preparing outside the center, too:

■ Increasing the number of pet-friendly shelters from one to three.

■ Purchasing generators for two shelters serving residents with special medical needs.

■ Pre-positioning water supplies close to shelters to ensure they can be stocked quickly before opening to the public.

Inside the operations center, a 23-foot diagonal television screen has been erected in the main war room where policy decisions are made. It’ll allow emergency managers to receive data quickly from a variety of news, weather, government and other sources.

The new technology also will allow managers to easily patch through specific information to any of the 88 monitors set up throughout the building that are being used by city and county emergency officials.

The center is just north of the West Regional Library off Broward Boulevard in Plantation. It houses emergency officials from throughout the county when a hurricane is within striking distance.

Besides the operations center adding more cots in sleeping areas, there’ll be more room for crew members on 72-hour rotations to catch a quick nap on the main floor.

With new computers that no longer need bulky harddrives stored under tables, that below-table space can provide some shut-eye, officials said.

The operations center is under the supervision of Tracy Jackson, the county’s new regional public safety and emergency services director, who was stationed in downtown Miami with firerescue when Hurricane Andrew struck in 1992.

“Our EOC looked nothing like this,” Jackson said.

He’s hoping nothing like Andrew arrives this year.

“We’d never seen anything like it, and we weren’t sure what the future was going to look like day to day,” he said.