The town of Vernon has been awarded a $25,000 grant that will allow them to upgrade their emergency operations center.
The center is a hub for emergency response when large-scale situations or weather events happen in the area.
The grant, from the state division of Homeland Security, was competitive, and town leaders are excited.
“With this money that we're going to get, we're going to enhance this operations center,” said town administrator Michael Purcaro. “Our number one job in government is to keep people safe, to protect the people that we serve, and the public safety is our number one priority. This will help us do that job even better."
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He said they’ll focus on upgrading two areas.
"To enhance tech that will help us with our training, first responders in the medical sense, in our virtual reality training simulator that we have,” Purcaro said. “The other is with our drone aircraft aviation unit. Both for fire, police operations, we'll be able to broadcast the video feed into our EOC which really provides a whole new level of situational awareness when responding to emergencies."
Purcaro said phone and computer equipment will also be upgraded, along with tables and chairs to make the center more comfortable for those first responders working long shifts.
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"Being here 12-15 hours a day is an arduous task,” said Dan Wasilewski, fire administrator for the town. “Comfort is something we try to instill to help our employees get through those shifts. Part of this grant will upgrade our furniture in this room to more ergonomic seats, tables, at different heights...less stress on our employees as these emergencies evolve."
The town is already leading the charge on a new form of training – virtual reality. They have a set of virtual reality headsets that are used to train first responders on real-life scenarios firsthand.
The grant will expand that training and allow more trainees to benefit from the tools than just the person wearing the headset.
“From a minor laceration of your arm to a drug overdose response, to a person giving birth...the scenarios are constantly evolving and they're hyper realistic, which again, only helps with training and that translates to the real world which saves lives,” Purcaro added.
