RAVENNA TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Portage County's new state-of-the-art emergency management facility is open and already preparing for disasters, human-made or natural.
It’s been an out-of-the-ordinary year for Portage County with multiple flash flood events and a confirmed EF-1 tornado in April.
RELATED: Homes damaged, roadways closed after tornado touches down in Portage County Wednesday
Portage County EMA Director Ryan Shackelford said the new facility should immensely help with response times and quicker communication between key partners and agencies.
Shackelford can't help but be enthusiastic as he showed off the county's new $4.4 million emergency response facility.
“You'll notice right about the ceiling is concrete 10 inch slabs 1,600 pounds each, so it's meant to withstand a very specific event,” Shackleford said.
Shackelford is thrilled because, for the first time in decades, the county now has the space and updated technology to gather information faster, alert the public quicker, and work together under one roof in urgent situations.
“When push comes to shove this building is meant to bring all the key entities together to respond to our worst day here in Portage County whether human-caused or natural disasters,” Shackleford said.
The EF-1 tornado earlier this year had 110-mile-per-hour winds and ripped off porches, toppled trees, and tore a family's home in half.
While clean-up from that tornado took months, the over 6,000 square foot facility now has a centralized call center for all key area partners like fire, police, EMS, power companies and hospitals to gather in case of an emergency.
“University Hospitals, Portage Medical Center, Portage County Public Health, Kent Public Health, right behind them is Mass Care, Portage County Family Services, American Red Cross, and Job and Families Services,” said Shackelford.
There's also a garage for vehicles, trailers and equipment for hazmat, collapse searches, incident management, and search and rescue missions. There are designated spaces for press conferences, the Red Cross, and temperature-controlled storage spaces in the event of another medical-related pandemic.
“Since we are centrally located someone could literally pull into this gate, issue whatever they are getting issued, a vaccine, water, food and go right out the front gates on SR 59 and then they are gone,” said Shackelford.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the solar eclipse were major catalytic events in which the need for an upgraded space became even more apparent.
“Our previous space only had 12 tables, not a lot of technology, not a lot of infrastructure, so we didn't have a lot of space to accommodate all the partners we had during COVID or during the solar eclipse to accommodate any large scale disaster,” Shackelford said.
While there hasn't been a need for the space since opening at the beginning of October, Shackelford knows the space will be put to good use in only a matter of time.
“Even though we are considered a small rural county, we have 163,000 people,” said Shackelford. “There's a lot of hazards. There's a lot of things that happen and a ton of public events and we need to have a facility like this in the event we have a bad day like you are seeing in North Carolina and other counties across Ohio.”
Throughout the year, Portage County EMA will also be running test scenarios so all the key partners can practice real-time responses in the case of any emergency.
