County proposes $2 million emergency operations center

During the Sleepy Hollow wildfire this past year, the Chelan County Emergency Management Department did not have a space it could readily use as its operations center to coordinate the response efforts.

During a tour of the fire, 12th District Representatives Brad Hawkins and Cary Condotta and Sen. Linda Evans-Parlette agreed that there is a need for a dedicated and modern emergency response center that would serve Chelan and Douglas counties.

The overall cost of the project is just under $2 million. The funding requests will happen in two phases, the first $240,000 request that will cover the initial costs of the project was made this fall after the tour of the fire damage, Chelan County Emergency Management spokesman Kent Sisson said. The second $1.6 million request will be made during the 2017 legislative session.

Currently the funding requests are still in committee. If the project receives funds during the 2017 session the project should be completed later that year.

In the building they are currently located in, a fire station that is leased from the Wenatchee Fire Department located at 408 N. Western Ave., Wenatchee, the building does not have a room with enough phone lines and Internet capabilities to immediately support an emergency operations center.

"You need to be able to walk into a building with functioning power and phones. We have never had that," Sisson said. "Last time we needed it was during the Sleepy Hollow Fire."

During the fire, a room in the current building was temporally converted into an EOC, Sisson said. Phone and Internet wires where hanging from the ceiling.

It took a full day to convert the room and nothing worked, Sisson said. Technical support had to be called in, it took them a full day to get things up and running.

The building where they are currently located will be reactivated as a fire station at the end of 2016, so Emergency Management will have to relocate to a location without enough space to set up a temporary EOC like they did during the Sleepy Hollow fire.

Emergency Management has two storage sheds at 210 Easy St. in Wenatchee, Sisson said. That area is shared by Chelan County Public Works.

Those two sheds will be demolished and that footprint will be used as the base of the new two-story building. The lower level and part of the upper will be used as storage for Emergency Management's equipment and half of the upper level will be used as the space for the EOC.

This is a high priority for the District 12 legislators, a joint statement from Condotta and Hawkins said. Anytime streamlining emergency response in a region it is a benefit to the communities in the region.

Parlette has met with the Senate majority's capital-budget leader who is making a list of funding requests.

She is also the chairwoman of the Republican Majority Coalition.

"I have been in a position to share about our region's regular struggle with wildfires," Parlette said in a statement. "My colleagues understand that we need help."

The funds come from state grants that come from bonds used to pay for public works projects throughout the state.