FARMINGTON—The new Emergency Operations Center (EOC) has been completed and is ready to provide emergency services to Davis County residents and all 15 cities. The 17,300 square foot facility, located on the Justice Complex campus, is the first of its kind in the county and is also one of the safest.

"The center has long been needed and will provide essential support services to our community,” said Mitch Matern, Justice Complex Facilities Manager, at a ribbon cutting and open house celebration March 27. “This facility will serve as a primary gathering place for first responders during emergencies, providing the tactical space necessary for developing critical plans and resolutions.”

 This building is much overdue, said Davis County Sheriff Kelly Sparks. “For well over 40 years the Sheriff's Office has been tasked with overseeing emergency management. Emergency management means planning for, preventing, preparing for, responding to, recovering from and mitigating all kinds of emergencies, natural disasters and other emergency events that occur in our county.”

Davis County has never had a dedicated emergency operations center before, he said. “When emergencies happen it’s all hands on deck and there’s a need for a lot of coordination. We have suffered from a lack of being able to properly coordinate an EOC.”

Sparks said when he became sheriff about seven years ago, they started having conversations with the commissioners that were then in place. “We started taking tours. Curtis Koch, who was the Clerk/Auditor at the time, was involved in that, looking for ways to fund it. Fortunately, we were able to obtain some funds from the state and local fiscal recovery fund, which was part of the COVID-19 recovery and so this building was built with those funds.”

This has been something that has been much needed, he said. “Davis County is the third most populous county in the state. We’re probably one of the only major counties that did not have an EOC.”

Here are a few facts:

• Geopier foundation is engineered to withstand earthquake shaking and

liquefaction

• Emergency generator backup power to keep the facility operational in a sustained

power outage

• Natural lighting and security features
• Starlink satellite internet, phone, and radio redundancy communications

capabilities

• A Joint Information Center (JIC) with an LED wall for press conference

messaging and a media staging area for public information dissemination

• Communications technology to foster interoperability with the 15 cities, regional

partners, Utah Division of Emergency Management, Federal Emergency

Management Agency (FEMA), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

• The latest GIS mapping technology allowing first responders and residents to

transmit damage information to the EOC dashboard instantaneously, so EOC staff

can assess which areas are hardest hit and dispatch assistance to streamline our

response and expedite recovery

“I think that one of the most important things to understand or recognize is where there's a vision that things are going to be OK,” said Commission Chair John Crofts. “I think this building represents the vision of Davis County in the future of protecting our residents.”

Emergency management is comprehensive, he said. “It isn’t just responding to disasters. It’s preparing and mitigating disasters. Davis County is one of the counties that has been recognized throughout the state and the country for their mitigation work.”

Davis County is growing fast, said Ember Herrick, Davis County Emergency Manager. “Our emergency preparedness and response capabilities need to expand with our growing population.”