North County EOC

PALM BEACH GARDENS - For the past two hurricane seasons, officials with the
Northern Palm Beach County Improvement District have had to use a
storm-water pump station as their emergency operations center.

In the span of about 15 months, things have changed drastically. From now
on, district workers can take shelter at their own hurricane-proof building.
On Wednesday, officials held an open house for their nearly $6 million
facility. Construction started in July last year.

The morning was a festive occasion. Steel drums rang in the second floor.
Papayas adorned a buffet table just outside the meeting room, fitted with
impact-glass windows.

Still, people couldn't help but think of a much less sunnier side of the
Florida lifestyle.

"I think what's going to happen is, during the tour, a lot of people are
going to pick out their bedrooms," state Sen. Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm
Beach, joked before staffers showed visitors around the 14,000-square-foot
facility.

The last few years have offered the district - which maintains roads and
drainage for several communities from Southern Boulevard north to the Martin
County line - several lessons on preparedness.

At one point, a generator motor blew out at a storm-water pump station,
flooding the roads in the Ironhorse community off Jog Road. It took almost
three days for the station to get running again.

Then there were the stations that had to guzzle up their generator fuel,
leaving the district with no way to transfer untouched gallons of diesel
from one station to another that needed it more.

"We couldn't move them," Executive Director O'Neal Bardin remembered. "Now
we can."

The district can count on a fuel trailer and two backup generators for the
two-story facility and the 16 pump stations. Shower stalls, a washer and
dryer, and eight bunk beds mean that up to eight staffers can live there for
about a week.

The former office, across the parking lot on Hiatt Drive, was sold this year
for $2.2 million to a developer.

By Ana X. Ceron
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 12, 2006

Posted by Donald Urschalitz P.A. at October 18, 2006 03:04 PM