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Unify Hillsborough disaster response

Hillsborough needs an emergency operations center that serves the entire county. It is absurd the city of Tampa manages its disaster response out of a separate building. Bringing county and city government rescuers under one roof, along with private relief agencies, would better protect a coastal county of 1-million people.

The county's existing facility in east Tampa is too small. Officials need more work space, better structural designs to take advantage of modern communications and room for workers to sleep, meet and broadcast to the public. Hillsborough commissioners took the right step Wednesday, authorizing a consultant to assess the needs of a unified command center by spring 2007. This does not need to be a Taj Mahal. The building should be functional enough for the county to conduct routine operations and training and adapt easily when rescuers need to mobilize more fully.

Common sense says the county needs a larger building and local authorities should cooperate. The harder part - and this should be discussed as we wait for the consultant's report in five months - is deciding how all-encompassing to make the mission of the emergency operations department. There has been a trend in government since 9/11 and Katrina to tolerate "mission creep" in emergency management operations, and new and bigger digs could feed that bureaucracy. The county should keep a level head about what the new building is for and avoid its tendency to nitpick the city over turf, building costs and who gets what space. Arguing over who pays for the roof would sour the very sense of teamwork this building is supposed to foster.

[Last modified October 10, 2006, 02:06:27]