The Leon County Sheriff’s Office was showing off its brand new in-house command center on Wednesday, March 28. The facility is meant to be either a stand-alone hub of department operations or connected to the county’s Public Safety Complex in cases of all-out emergency.
Chief of Administrative Services Steve Harrelson said the new center on the ground floor of the Sheriff’s Department headquarters on Municipal Way will coordinate its functions with the county’s big center on Easterwood Drive when a major disaster strikes.
“We are not isolated; we are not in a silo here." he insisted. "We have people that will be stationed at the Emergency Operations Center that will be talking to our people here to get our missions out in the field that we do.”
Harrelson explained the new center will also come in handy when the Sheriff’s Office is handling big things on its own.
“We would roll our mobile command center out there. That would be the command post on the scene, but this would become the nerve center for the entire operation. So anything having to do with logistics, supplies, manpower, it would all be tracked through this location.”
Meaning, he concluded, a quicker, more coordinated response regardless of the situation.
