By Vanessa Miller
The Daily Camera
BOULDER, Colo. — As calls started pouring into police dispatchers Wednesday reporting smoke, fire and homes at risk, a new Boulder County operations center began responding to its first major emergency.
While the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office set up an incident command at the scene of the fast-moving Olde Stage Fire north of Boulder, the Office of Emergency Management — which moved its operations center to 3280 Airport Road a few months ago — started organizing support at its new facility.
Between 30 and 40 people who staffed the center organized communication to the public, coordinated shift changes for exhausted firefighters and called for additional resources needed at hot spots or threatened homes.
Now that the blaze — which torched more than 3,000 acres and sent about 1,300 families from their homes — is fully contained, officials are planning to review the response.
“We think it went pretty good — that’s the response we got from the public,” said Jerry Tate, director of the office. “But there’s always room for improvement.”
The new center is 1,600 square feet and houses the county dispatch center and emergency operations.
Before this week, Tate said, the emergency-operations section had been used just once, to provide support for the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
“This was the first emergency disaster situation we faced with the new building,” he said.
Using the new center’s upgraded electronic features, computers and software, Tate
said, operators took calls from residents while officials answered media questions and firefighting personnel coordinated ground efforts.
Boulder County set up three public hotlines to keep people from seeking information by calling 911. Without alternative hotlines, Tate said, emergency call-takers would have been overwhelmed.
Officials said phones were ringing non-stop the first night. Boulder police spokeswoman Sarah Huntley, who helped man the emergency center, said many of the callers wanted to know when they could return home and how the fire suppression was coming.
Boulder County’s new Emergency Operations Center, near the jail, sits at the ready for an emergency, such as the Olde Stage Fire.
Copyright 2009 Daily Camera and Boulder Publishing, LLC
All Rights Reserved