By Alia Wilson, San Jose Mercury News (California)

What’s black and white and wireless all over?

The Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety’s new satellite-equipped mobile command center that can communicate with up to 16,000 different law enforcement and emergency services radio frequencies.

The latest member of the department joined the team in January as part of the national effort to improve interoperable emergency communications. Thanks to the California Emergency Management Agency’s Homeland Security Grant Program, Sunnyvale DPS was able to make that possible.

The 37-foot, 22,000-pound vehicle is the first one of its kind to be used by the city.

“We have had a need for this for many years,” said Capt. Doug Moretto, reflecting on years of having to work without a mobile center, without shelter and in the rain.

The mobile command center’s main purpose is to provide an on-site space for Sunnyvale’s DPS officers to operate during an emergency situation, such as a severe multi-car accident or a hostage situation.

“Homeland security starts with hometown security,” Moretto said, adding that the vehicle will first be deployed within the city and the region and eventually across the San Francisco and Monterey Bay areas.

The vehicle was called into action during the San Miguel Elementary School lockdown on Jan. 20, after a caller made gun threats targeting the school.

A joystick-operated video camera on the vehicle’s roof, which can extend 35 feet, was used for surveillance of the school’s roof as well as the SWAT team’s operations.

Officers can also watch live news coverage on DirecTV, pull up Google maps and draw on a SMART Board to designate search areas and send the images to an outdoor television for tactical operations.

The command center can also be linked with a similar vehicle in the Palo Alto Police Department.

“It’s a great way to get information out,” Moretto said. “There are a lot of applications for this.”

Unofficially nicknamed “Big Bertha,” the vehicle also boasts a 20-kilowatt generator that could power an entire block or keep emergency equipment running, such as a dialysis machine in a convalescent home.

In the back of the vehicle is a center for dispatchers equipped with three different screens, which mirror the dispatch center set up. Officers can communicate with law enforcement agencies in the county and hope to expand the range from Contra Costa to Monterey counties.

“The key word here is interoperability,” Moretto said. “Historically, we would have to huddle around patrol cars or knock on people’s doors and ask if we could gather in their garages.

“It’s really nice to have something like this in the field when data and communication are more than half the battle.”

Copyright © 2012 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved.