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New Emergency Operations Center to Receive $2.5 Million Grant

A $2.5 million grant is on the way to help fund a new Emergency Operations Center in downtown Madison. The project scope includes a much-needed renovation of the Madison Hose Company 1 firehouse and the siting of a permanent emergency operations center.

The grant, which still has a perfunctory step before funds are actually disbursed to the town, will address these two critical concerns. The project is expected to cost $3.1 million, and the grant is for a projected $2.5 million. According to First Selectwoman Peggy Lyons, the shortfall will come from the town’s general fund and not affect the budget projections or tax calculations.

“There are actually two needs in town. One is Madison Hose. They have been wanting, for some time, to do an expansion of their facility downtown because equipment has gotten much larger. They have boats and other equipment, and they simply need more space,” said Lyons. “And then the town has been in need of a permanent emergency operations center. What that is, is a place that during an emergency will have all of the technical equipment and run dispatch operations through an emergency center so that everything can be coordinated.”

According to Lyons, the town’s current emergency operations center is located in a Board of Education conference room, which does not make for an ideal scenario as it requires setting up and breaking down the “facility” and has other technical and logistical shortfalls, that the new center will address.

“We kind of store everything in a closet, and if we think we are moving into a storm event, we have to go in and set everything up. Part of the facilities study that was conducted three years ago had identified that as a space need and something the town really needed,” said Lyons.

According to Lyons, Emergency Management Director Sam DeBurra, combined the two needs to ensure that Madison Hose could effectively address its storage and safety issues and that a dedicated Emergency Ops Center could have a permanent location.

“Many towns have their emergency operations center embedded in their fire departments, so we saw this grant opportunity with the federal government and were excited to apply for it,” Lyons said. “[The grant] would basically fund an extension of the firehouse downtown and then above the bays would fund a permanent training room and emergency operations center. That way, we can keep all of the equipment there and it’s also a great location from which to centralize operations. It serves a lot of different purposes.”

DeBurra, said the funding, once approved, will be a crucial component in the town’s ability to react to an emergency. The temporary center at the Board of Education, isn’t a viable long-term solution, as set-up and break-down are required to utilize the site, which could put residents and personnel at greater risk.

Though storms can be predicted and time allotted for that, DeBurra said, if an unexpected emergency ever arose, critical time could be lost in that set-up period, making a permanent and dedicated site a compelling need for the town’s emergency services departments.

“It is important to have dedicated space where you can just turn the lights on and be ready to go. It protects the first responders as well as the public. Look what happened in East Palestine, Ohio, where they had that train derail,” DeBurra said. “If something like that happens and we have to start evacuating quickly, we don’t want to be taking 20 to 30 minutes to set up the operations center. It’s just not conducive to public safety.”

The grant will arrive via a federal program, the FY 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 2617), a bipartisan spending package that includes all twelve annual federal appropriations bills, according to Congressman Joe Courtney.

According to Courtney’s office, the bill includes funding for a wide range of eastern Connecticut priorities and marks the second consecutive year that Congress has approved specific, targeted funding for local projects requested by Members of Congress, known as “Community Project Funding.”