New 30,000-sq.-ft. emergency operations center broke ground in January

The county broke ground on a 30,000-square-foot emergency services operations center Jan. 26, and Williamson County also began a public safety technology project in the spring of 2011 that it will continue to implement in 2012.

Williamson County Emergency Services Director John Sneed said efficiency is paramount in the world of public safety and that Williamson County is committed to ensuring that its public safety and emergency management personnel have the tools they need to perform at a high level.

The new operations center does just that, he said.

"It shows the commitment that this county and our [county] court have for supporting public safety," Sneed said.

WilCo Emergency Services Operations Center

Scheduled for completion by the summer of 2013, the Williamson County Emergency Services Operations Center will house emergency management departments that right now are scattered in various locations across the county.

Williamson County 911 Communications is currently located within the Sheriff's Office at 508 S. Rock St. in Georgetown. Sneed said there is no way to expand the department in the space.

"The communications center right now is outdated and cramped," Precinct 2 Commissioner Cynthia Long said.

A previous commissioners court approved funding for the facility and sold the certificate of obligation bonds in 2006.

Long said the current Commissioners Court is committed to the project but also wanted to make sure that the needs were adequately addressed, that the project came in on-budget and that certain technology updates were implemented prior to starting construction on the new facility.

Inside the $12 million building there will be office space for 911 communications, Emergency Management, Hazardous Materials and some personnel from the Sheriff's Office.

Chip Riggins, executive director and health authority of the Williamson County and Cities Health District, said the Public Health Preparedness Division will also be on-site and participate emergency management planning.

"I think it will help everybody to have public health to be a part of those discussions and planning processes," he said.

The county has also budgeted $6 million for electronic and technology equipment for the operations center.

In the case of a wide-scale emergency, such as a flood or a tornado, the facility will become a hub where all county departments that handle emergencies, and even city officials, can gather to deal with the situation.

In the past, county officials have used the training room in the Williamson County Juvenile Justice Center when creating an emergency operations center.

"It's not set up, which means I.T. has to come in and set everything up before we can get started, and I hate to say that we have to run wires across the ground and use duct tape to keep people from tripping, but that is the case," Sneed said. "This facility will allow us to be completely set up and ready to go."

Public safety technology

In 2011, the county began implementing a $4.2 million public safety technology project, which included installing a new computer-aided dispatch system and supplying computers for public safety personnel to use in their vehicles.

Sneed said the technology updates are especially useful to law enforcement officers, allowing them to run license plates without calling into the dispatch center and also complete their field reporting from their vehicles.

"They are still visible out in the neighborhoods, still watching for crime, yet now their car has become their office," he said.

The CAD also has a GPS component that tracks the location and availability of every public safety vehicle in the county. When a call comes into the 911 communications center, Sneed said the program can send the closest appropriate vehicle to respond to the situation.

Future plans

The county plans to erect more public safety radio towers in the near future. There are five, but plans are to bring two more online in early 2012, one each in Round Rock and Georgetown.

The towers help departments such as fire, police, EMS and public works communicate using their hand-held radios inside of buildings.

"The density in homes as our population grows causes the radio system to degrade because it won't penetrate through all those buildings," Sneed said. "So as we get more buildings, we're going to have to put up more towers."

Another future goal of the county is to link its CAD system with the CAD systems of the cities within Williamson County and Austin. Instead of a dispatcher in a city transferring a call to Williamson County EMS, the dispatcher will be able to input the information into the computer system, which will then be picked up by the county dispatcher.

"We're trying to lower the amount of time it takes for fire, police and EMS to respond to our citizens' calls for help," he said.