Plans for building a new Emergency Operations Center (EOC) for Orleans County got a boost last week with a visit from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).
She announced $2 million in federal funding to go toward the estimated $12 million dollar facility.
Tom Rivers, the editor at our news partner, Orleans Hub, said the current facility in Albion is outmoded.
“The current one is from 1962. It’s a bunker, there’s not a lot of space and it’s set up as a civil defense center,” said Rivers. “Things have changed over the years in terms of classroom training, and I would say just the nature of emergencies, from the COVID response, the blizzard, the Lake Ontario flooding.”
Rivers also said the current emergency management office in Orleans County is not ADA compliant.
Justin Niederhofer, Orleans County’s Emergency Operations director, told the Orleans Hub that the new facility “will ensure the EOC can be operational in minutes versus hours, while simultaneously utilizing the backup dispatch and the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service, which provides back up communication capabilities during disasters.”
Gillibrand issued a statement saying that the Orleans County Emergency Management Office “is crucial to keeping 40,000 people in this community safe,” and she said the current facility also has a leaking roof.
There isn’t a specific timetable on when the new building will be constructed.
