Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.  — The city’s new Emergency Operations Center — with a backup system to power the windowless building for six days and a police dispatch station for three north county cities — is scheduled to open the first week of May.

“We’re building a self-contained bubble in case there is nobody out there that can help us,” Gardens City Engineer Todd Engle said.

The $4 million beige center with red trim, between city hall and the police station on Military Trail, can withstand Hurricane Andrew-like winds.

The single-story building will be the city’s nerve center for administrative, police, fire and other municipal services during a flood, hurricane or other emergency.

Its resiliency comes from redundancy, said C. Everette Vaughn Jr., senior manager for Palm Beach County’s Division of Emergency Management.

Generators, air conditioners, circuit breakers, the water supply system and computer servers all are built so that if one breaks down, another takes over.

The fiber optic communications system has its own backup. That system is backed up by the Palm Beach County system.

“Countywide, we are moving from analog to fiber optics,” Vaughn said. “Residents will get their phone calls answered faster. The fiber optic system means future technology can rapidly be put in place.”

Built by Davie-based Pirtle Construction, the company that built the new $110 million Palm Beach Gardens High School, the Emergency Operations Center is the only Category 5 wind-rated building in the city, able to withstand sustained winds up to 205 mph.

The police station and city hall are both Category 2, which means they can withstand sustained winds up to 120 mph.

The city decided to build the center after recent hurricanes, Palm Beach Gardens Mayor David Levy said.

“We almost lost the roof to the police station. If city hall and the police station go down, we can run the city out of the EOC,” Levy said.

Town councils from Juno Beach and Jupiter recently approved an agreement to move their police dispatch offices into the emergency center.

Two dozen police dispatchers from the nearby towns will become employees of Palm Beach Gardens.

Police dispatch from the three communities will operate out of the same room in the center.

Jupiter and Palm Beach Gardens each will pay 48 percent of the $2.4 million annual police dispatch operating costs. Juno Beach will pay about 4 percent. The cost is based on population.

“This is bad news for the bad guys. The dispatchers can exchange information faster,” Gardens Police Chief Stephen Stepp said.

Residents will see no reduction in the three-minute average response time, said acting Juno Beach Police Chief Brian Smith.

Police cars will remain stationed at the Juno Beach and Jupiter stations, according to officials from both departments.

Other north county communities have been approached to join the Gardens police dispatch system.

Merging is a cost-saving idea village officials might consider in the future, said North Palm Beach Village Manager Jimmy Knight.

“Merging government services is becoming more popular. We’ll be watching to see how it works,” Knight said.

But the downside is a potential loss of the personal touch in small communities, said Mike Couzzo, Tequesta village manager.

“We’re not interested in joining,” he said. “Our police department dispatch system isn’t broken. We don’t need to fix it.”

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