$1M in federal funds will bring new emergency operations center to Rockford

U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth on Saturday visited Rockford Fire Department headquarters where a $1 million Congressional earmark she backed will help pay to establish a permanent emergency operations center.

Duckworth said recent battery and chemical fires, natural disasters and the coronavirus pandemic are all illustrations of why Rockford needs to replace the makeshift center it houses in a fire department classroom with a dedicated space outfitted with the latest technology.

"I think of some of the fires we have had the last couple years," Duckworth said. "Like the Chemtool fire — now you have federal agencies as well as state agencies coming in for extended periods of time, a week in some cases. They could come here."

Funding for the emergency operations center was chosen from among more than 600 applicants vying for a portion of $88 million, according to information from Duckworth's office.

Money from the pool of "congressionally directed spending" went to dozens of projects across the state. They included a few projects in the Rockford area including $218,000 for an OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center rural telehealth initiative, $1 million for a Rockford small business development center and $1 million for a Rosecrance behavioral health triage center.

Money for the emergency operations center is expected to arrive in Rockford within months.

For now, computers, keyboards and monitors line the outskirts a room at Rockford Fire Department headquarters that is meant to be a classroom. Cables, communications equipment and more computers can be retrieved from storage cabinets and carted into the space when an emergency arises.

It takes 30-45 minutes to turn the classroom into an operations center that augments the city's 911 Center — where call takers routinely field 27 emergency calls an hour and took about 240,000 calls for service in 2022. The emergency operations center can take some of the load of directing responses off the 911 Center during a catastrophic or large-scale emergency, Rockford Fire Chief Michele Pankow said.

During previous emergencies, Rockford staff have manned a Winnebago County emergency response center located at the Criminal Justice Center.

Rockford Mayor Tom McNamara said plans are to convert training areas and opens space on the first floor of Rockford Fire Department headquarters, 204 S. First St., into the dedicated city of Rockford emergency operations center.

Pankow said it will be a huge improvement over what Rockford has now.

"It gets packed in here pretty quick. It gets warm real quick, and we have really out-grown that and seen the need for the last couple years," Pankow said. "There truly is a need to have something where it is already set up and something where we simply assemble and go."

Jeff Kolkey can be reached at  (815) 987-1374, via email at jkolkey@rrstar.com and on Twitter @jeffkolkey.

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: US Sen. Tammy Duckworth chooses Rockford Fire for $1M emergency center