Santa Rosa to get $1 million in federal funding to create permanent emergency operations center

Santa Rosa will establish a permanent command center where public safety officials can coordinate response to wildfires and other disasters with the help of $1 million in federal funds.

The city has run its emergency operations center out of a makeshift space in various city facilities for years. City workers typically lug out and set up the equipment every time there’s a disaster, a process that can delay how quickly officials can analyze the emergency and begin sending aid.

The federal dollars, part of $10.8 million earmarked for California’s 5th Congressional District that was tucked into the spending bill signed by President Joe Biden on March 15, will help Santa Rosa turn an existing city building near Finley Community Park into a new operations hub.

Having a permanent space will help improve response times and coordination between the city and other agencies, Emergency Preparedness Manager Neil Bregman said.

“Making sure we have a space that is in working order is critical to improve response because we don’t want to waste a second in getting to work to protect, help and assist the residents and visitors of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County,” Bregman said.

Renovating the facility and installing equipment is estimated to cost between $1.5 million and $1.7 million and construction could start in late 2022 or early next year, he said.

Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, helped secure the money and said the center is vital to mitigating loss of life and property damage during an emergency.

“When there’s an emergency, speed is of the essence, and when you have to unpack a storage container and set stuff up and get people moved in, you lose valuable time and that can mean the difference between saving lives and losing lives.” Thompson said. “This will give Santa Rosa a hand up in responding to any problems we may face.”

‘Get right to work when time counts’

Emergency operations centers serve as a central facility where emergency management officials and first responders coordinate disaster response, evacuations and aid and analyze and share information with supporting agencies during a wildfire, flood or earthquake.

Santa Rosa has activated its emergency center 13 times since 2017, according to the city.

Sonoma County built a permanent emergency operations center in 1974 that is used daily as a training site but can quickly be operated as a command center in times of disaster.

However, the city’s facility, near Stony Point Road and College Avenue, was long considered “cold,” meaning it wasn’t active year-round and equipment needed to be set up to respond to an emergency, Bregman said.

Work stations, phones and other equipment were stored in a closet in the city’s Utilities Field Office and set up in various conference rooms when there was an emergency, a process that could sometimes take up to 45 minutes, he said.

Officials in 2020 began setting up the operations center in advance when staff received notice from the National Weather Service of a heavy winter storm or when critical fire weather was expected, which helped improve response times, he said.

The operations center moved to a temporary space in the nearby Transit Operations Building in summer 2020 after the air conditioning in the utilities office broke.

Emergency officials have operated out of that space since and saw firsthand the importance of having a command center in working order when the Glass fire ignited Sept. 27, 2020, in an area of Howell Mountain. The fire burned 67,000 acres and destroyed nearly 1,600 structures in Napa and Sonoma counties.

“Having that EOC already set up showed to a lot of people how much time you can save,” Bregman said. “You can get right to work when time counts.”

Construction expected to take 18 months

Santa Rosa officials began working in March 2021 to find a location and secure funding for a permanent operations center.

The city identified an underutilized city office building next to the transit facility to house the command center.

The 5,300-square-foot building will be renovated and will include conference rooms and a command center with computers, telephones, televisions, plotter printers and other technology necessary to respond to an emergency, Bregman said.

Crews will need to install generators to ensure the center has power during an outage. The building may need to be brought up to code for earthquake standards but an assessment is needed, he said.

Bregman said one of his goals also is to create a space that is comfortable for emergency workers who spend long hours in the command center during a disaster.

The space will be used to run drills and provide classes when there isn’t an active emergency.

Thompson said he “went to bat” to secure the money for the project because he recognized the value of a permanent center.

The city must sign a grant agreement with the Federal Emergency Management Agency before the federal dollars are disbursed. The city hasn’t identified how it will cover costs beyond the $1 million grant but is looking at various funding options, Bregman said.

Construction is expected to take up to 18 months and the transit building will continue to house the operations center until the new facility is ready.

“We’re very appreciative of our elected officials working on this,” Bregman said. “This is something we’ve been looking for … for a long time.”

You can reach Staff Writer Paulina Pineda at 707-521-5268 or paulina.pineda@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @paulinapineda22.