Eagle County’s new Emergency Operations Center to host open house

Eagle County Emergency Management will celebrate the grand opening of the county’s dedicated Emergency Operations Center (EOC) during an open house from 4 to 6 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 29. The EOC is located on the lowest level of the Eagle County Building at 500 Broadway in Eagle. The public is invited to attend.

The open house will commemorate completion of the first phase of the new EOC, which will also serve as an expanded computer training room. Cost of this phase was $200,000, with half of the project funded through a grant from the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Public Safety.

According to Emergency Management Director Barry Smith, an EOC is responsible for the strategic overview of emergency situations. “The common functions of an EOC are to collect, gather and analyze data; make decisions that protect life and property; maintain continuity of the organization within the scope of applicable laws; and disseminate those decisions to all concerned agencies and individuals,” Smith said. “In other words, the EOC is taking care of the ‘big picture’ items during an emergency to support our responders in the field.”

Future phases for the EOC will include additional equipment to provide for better real-time data collection and dissemination, as well as other enhancements. For more information on the EOC, contact Smith at 970-328-3545.

Immediately following the open house, the National Weather Service will be providing its biennial Weather Spotter Training from 6 to 8 p.m. The training is open to all interested community members. For details, visit www.crh.noaa.gov/gjt/?n=spottertraining.