Prepared and ready: Emergency Operation Center is complete
Calib LaRue in the new conference room within the center. Photos by Brandy Muz.
The rest recovery area.
Station for the fire department to operate within the center.
One of two monitors in the control room.
Calib LaRue in the new conference room within the center. Photos by Brandy Muz.
The rest recovery area.
Station for the fire department to operate within the center.
One of two monitors in the control room.
Natural disasters, mass tragedies and extreme events may sound intimidating and scary, but the Wareham Police Department is one step ahead.
The Emergency Operation Center located on the fifth floor of the Multi-Service Center at 48 Marion Road is now complete and ready to go. The center was made to supply the town with a physical location to coordinate and prepare for emergency situations.
Emergency Management Director Calib LaRue said the renovations began in Jan. 2025 and finished quickly.
"They gave me the floor and said, 'make it happen,'" LaRue said.
The multiple rooms provide emergency response teams with many resources. With spaces like a press room, conference room and rest recovery areas, the team hopes to provide emergency response personnel with the resources they need to tackle difficult situations.
The center was put to use when an extreme heat warning hit the East Coast on Tuesday, June 24.
As temperatures rose, a cooling center was opened by Emergency Management within the Multi-Service Center to give community members a safe space from dangerous conditions. The new center was used to organize and response to the emergency.
LaRue and his team experienced its first emergencies shortly after the cooling center was shuttered.
"We deactivated and shut this place down. I was bringing the emergency trailer back to the station with a bunch of water," he said. "As soon as I unhooked it, Middleboro called us out for assistance."
With temperatures reaching the high 90s, a transformer issue caused parts of Middleboro and Lakeville to lose power. Middleboro opened an emergency cooling center in response to the outages.
"I feel like we were overprepared," he said. "But when I saw what happened in Middleboro, in the event that we lost power we would have been fully prepared."
While most of the center is complete, there are future plans to build a kitchen and to use routine training to better prepare the teams.
The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency held training with emergency personnel and town officials in a move toward being prepared for possible events like hurricanes or mass shootings.
"I think there's room for us to improve, but I think we're a lot better off now than we were last year when I first took office," LaRue said.
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