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Emergency center ready for action
Fairfax County 911 operators, state police dispatchers and transportation officials with real-time access to traffic conditions will soon be able to share information in real time during emergencies of all scales.Fairfax County's new McConnell Public Safety and Transportation Operations Center and police forensics facility on West Ox Road is now mostly complete and the agencies that will work there are beginning to move in. The $135.5 million project is expected to be completed on budget and on schedule, according to a Sept. 16 audit report.
The center's 12,000-square-foot, two-story operations floor will house the county and state police emergency dispatchers and Virginia Department of Transportation staff. Supervisors from each agency will sit together on a raised platform in the middle of the open room, said PSTOC General Manager Tracy Shelton.
"If something comes up, they can literally turn around and talk about how to handle it," Shelton said.
One of the biggest perks is that information from VDOT's traffic operations center, which is relocating from Arlington to the new Fairfax facility, will be easily shared with the co-located police and rescue officials. Using the site's computer and audiovisual network, emergency personnel will be able to pull up images from VDOT traffic cameras.
"It will be much more efficient," said VDOT spokesman Mike Salmon. "We'll have our screens right there and we'll be able to tell police where accidents are."
The PSTOC building, which was named for former Springfield District supervisor Elaine McConnell, also includes a new emergency operations center for the county, which is used as a gathering spot for county officials during weather or other types of emergencies.
The county's Office of Emergency Management has already moved into the new building, and VDOT is training its staff and testing the new equipment and will "go live" with the new operations center in November. State police dispatchers will go live in December, and the county's 911 center will likely start operating at the new site in spring of 2009, Shelton said.
The West Ox campus also features a new Fairfax County Police forensics facility in an adjacent building. While it is not directly related to the operations center, it saved about $2 million for the county to construct both buildings at once, said Lt. Col. Steve Sellers, deputy chief of police.
"We've run out of space at our current location," Sellers said.
In addition to bigger work stations and more vehicle search bays, the new forensics facility has improved safety and ventilation equipment for chemical testing and better lighting.
It also provides future space for a county DNA lab. Now, all DNA is processed through a state facility, and the state does not place a priority on processing DNA collected at the scenes of nonviolent crimes, such as burglaries, Sellers said.
"The state's system is definitely overtaxed," he said. "It takes an extreme amount of time to get results back."
The county does not intend to take over all DNA processing, Sellers noted, but investigators want the flexibility to prioritize results they believe are important.
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