The new, $12 million, 60,000 square foot Escambia County Public Safety Facility was built in order to support local government agencies during times of emergencies. Located in Pensacola, Florida, this Emergency Operations Center was hardened to withstand high winds (in excess of 200 mph) and impact. Certain materials and systems were required to meet unusually high performance standards.

Facility types contained within the building include kitchen, exercise, 911 emergency dispatch, break room, restroom, sleeping quarter, office, emergency operations, mechanical, decontamination, conference, and news/media.

Schmidt Consulting Group, Inc. provided Mechanical, Plumbing, Electrical, Communications, and Security design services for the project.

A geothermal heating and cooling system was chosen for by our Mechanical Team because the system would require no equipment to be externally located above ground and thus avoids the need for protection from the elements during a hurricane or other emergency.

Our Communications system design included mission critical EOC systems, as well as licensed E-911 services and a redundant county data center.

The electrical design for the new facility required several key elements in order to make the facility meet the high degree of natural and environmental abuse it is intended to withstand. A 1000 Megawatt diesel emergency generator was incorporated in order to provide 14 days of full load power to the entire facility in the event of power loss. State-of-the-art redundant uninterruptible power supplies and power distribution units were provided to supply clean, consistent power to switchboards and panelboards to track such events as Power Quality and energy consumption. A custom raised floor grounding system was designed utilizing copper strips in order to comply with the recommendations of the IEEE on the grounding of sensitive electronic equipment. Faraday shields were designed out of mild sheet steel and placed on walls around mechanical equipment rooms in order to eliminate harmful electromagnetic interference from adversely effecting mission critical systems in adjacent areas of the building.

A roof-mounted air-terminal type lightning protection system, along with state-of-the-art bus mounted surge protection, was implemented to ensure the highest degree of protection against transient events. Diverse lighting requirements were met using a wide range of fixture types including fully indirect fixtures, parabolic troffers (meeting IESNA RP-1), and a versatile, easy to use lighting control system. Power and charging stations outside the building were provided for emergency vehicles. Services for media vehicles were provided for live television broadcasts from inside the facility.