S.C. 911 Team Getting New Home

June 25--Lexington County is starting on what County Council chairman Bill Banning calls a "new nerve center" for law enforcement and other emergency assistance.

A $13.4 million facility will become the home of 911 dispatchers and related public-safety officials as soon as late 2013.

It replaces a crowded maze of offices in the basement of the county administration building.

The new center -- designed to withstand storms and other catastrophes -- will move to a cluster of county facilities just outside the western edge of the town of Lexington.

"It's intended to be mighty strong and mighty secure," Councilman Smokey Davis said. "In the times we live in, we need to be ready for Mother Nature as well as home-grown and foreign terrorists."

The project will be paid for with state and federal aid along with county savings and a donation from Lexington Medical Center. No tax hike is planned.

Building the facility will cost $7.8 million. Equipment adds $5.6 million to the tab mainly for backup communication networks that assure help remains available during disasters.

In addition to the new facility, county leaders are spending up to $520,000 to modernize the contact network for ambulance crews and more than 200 volunteer firefighters.

That improvement is necessary to keep pace with wireless technology, public safety officials have said.

Both projects follow a series of new stations housing firefighters and equipment.

The new center for the 911 team is the latest step in a steady upgrade of public safety facilities across the 720-square-mile county, Banning said.

"We're going from something outdated to state-of-the-art," he said.

Reach Flach at (803) 771-8483.

Copyright 2012 - The State, Columbia, S.C.