Bruce Mills of Public Sector Solutions, LLC, gave his verbal evaluation of the status of the back-up generator installation progress for the Sealy PD building at Tuesdays Sealy City Council meeting. He stated that while the police department and the building are in good shape the facility itself cannot function as an EOC (Emergency Operations Center) until the generator is in place with fencing around it. Sealy is the backup 911 system for Austin County and Mr. Mills explained that until that generator is in place the facility will not be up to adequate standards for the job. The quote for the generator itself was given at around $120,000 for a propane generator with about 154 kW operating capacity, the recommended output for a facility the size that Sealy has. Mr. Mills stated that the bad news with that system is there is about an 8-10 week turnaround for it to arrive before installation could even begin. Without a generator in place, when the power goes down EOC communication goes down as well and workers in the background trying to deal with the emergency situation at hand are left with using their personal cell phones for communication and coordination with each other. The city council then had several questions for Mr. Mills: could the police and fire department be tied into the same generator, how prepared are we at this time for a natural disaster, etc. The entire exchange as well as Mr. Mills presentation can be viewed in the video below.
