New emergency operations center opens in San Pat Co.

San Patricio County has a new emergency operations center. The multi-million-dollar project took 18 months to complete and came just in time for hurricane season.

The newly built emergency management building in Sinton is dome-shaped, has two levels, and is designed to withstand a hurricane.

“Upstairs will be the data center for the county,” emergency management coordinator, Sara Williams said.

Williams has been dreaming of this Emergency Operations Center.

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“We’ve gone from this being an idea written down on some napkins at a conference to know what you see,” Williams said.

“Before, if we were going to stand up a group of people to coordinate the response to a disaster. We were doing it inside the training room at the Sheriff’s Office,” Williams said.

Williams said having a dedicated space, equipment, and supplies is what will make the emergency management team work efficiently and effectively during a disaster.

Helping 9 cities in the county.

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“We have a 60-foot tower outside that they’ll be able to place repeaters for the radios and we have a dedicated space for our hand radio operators to help subordinate response,” Williams said.

A lot of thought went into the details of the emergency operations center.

So much so that it was decided the servers running the county computer systems would be moved to the new building.

“All those things we depend on for our banking, our documentation, our communication. We want to make sure is resilient and functions during a disaster,” Williams said.

The emergency management team expects to be done moving into the building in June. Once settled, the team plans to do a training exercise.