Mesquite Fire and Rescue officials hosted a group of OPD5 staff members on a special visit to the new Fire Station #1 on Thursday, Feb. 20. It was Mesquite Fire Chief Jayson Andrus who led the tour of the 105 W. Mesquite Blvd facility. The tour included glimpses of the station’s large apparatus bays, firefighter living quarters, equipment rooms, department central offices, and more.
However, the tour’s main purpose was to familiarize the OPD5 delegation with the department’s new Emergency Operations Center (EOC) located at Station #1.
“The EOC is really a hub to bring various support resources to bear for both responding to and recovering from, a variety of possible emergencies in our community,” Andrus explained.
Andrus added that the objective of EOC is to bring various stakeholders together to pool resources in an emergency situation.
“For example, I can’t possibly have on hand all of the equipment that we might need for every emergency situation,” he said. “But I have got relationships through emergency management with an array of public and private entities – including federal, state, and local – to bring those resources if we need them.”
Andrus said that having a cooperative relationship with OPD5 was vital to the city’s emergency planning. He explained that power service is one of the 15 most vital emergency support functions identified in their plans.
“It is essential for us to have a working partnership with OPD5,” he said. “If the emergency is a power issue then that relationship is essential, of course. But even if not, there are resources that Overton Power can bring to the table. They have equipment, trucks, and trained personnel that we don’t have. Through those relationships, if I need to call OPD5 and ask for help, I’m confident that they are going to lend a hand.”
OPD5 Interim CEO MeLisa Garcia said that the tour was helpful in orienting key district staff on their possible roles at the EOC, if such a need should ever occur.
Garcia also welcomed the collaborative relationship with the city. “OPD5 is not some faceless corporation being governed from a distance for a profit,” she said. “Our board and our staff are all local residents and ratepayers. We are a part of these communities. This is our home. So we will always be happy to step up and help whenever we are needed. We are pleased to build this very cooperative rapport with the City of Mesquite, with the Fire Department, and with Chief Andrus.”
The EOC features a variety of state-of-the-art communications technology brought together in one place. This includes banks of computers with high-speed connections; a Ham radio station, in case internet, phone, and cell communications should go down; and even a community radio station which plays content on a cycle but stands ready to transmit emergency broadcast messages when needed. That station is broadcast at 105.3 FM on the dial.
“The radio station is old technology, of course, but it is extremely important because the cell towers are still going down on a regular basis,” Andrus said. “So if, say, the I-15 is washed out in a major flood, we can do regular announcements over that broadcast to instruct people on what to do.”
In addition, the new EOC has the capability to operate completely under backup power through a large generator set onsite. Thus the communications technology would not be affected in times of power outage.