Wednesday, Oct. 26, Cumberland County officials held a ribbon cutting ceremony and public walkthrough for the new Emergency Services Center located at 500 Executive Place in Fayetteville.

The new center will house 9-1-1 Telecommunications, Fire Marshal’s office, Emergency Management and the County’s Emergency Operations Center. The facility will feature an expanded workspace to maximize communications efforts, as well as technology improvements that have been integrated into the new building to improve customer service and efficiency. 

The event marked the culmination of a process that began six years ago when Hurricane Matthew came through North Carolina and Cumberland County, significantly impacting the community and highlighting the need for a new, state-of-the-art facility for the County’s emergency response efforts. Two years later, Hurricane Florence confirmed that need. In late 2018, the County purchased an existing building at 500 Executive Place in Fayetteville to be renovated to serve as the new Emergency Services Center.

“Words can’t express how excited Cumberland County Emergency Services is to move into our new home,” said Emergency Services Director Gene Booth in a press release. “The additional space and advanced technology will enhance the critical services we provide our residents.”

The new Emergency Services Center features next generation 9-1-1 equipment, including a phone system with text-to-911 capability. It will also allow for rapid call routing to other 9-1-1 centers in the event the facility must be evacuated. Additionally, the audio-visual system has been designed to allow for maximum communication and flexibility.

The facility includes eight separate meeting spaces and more than 25 monitors, including a video wall in the Emergency Operations Center, which is capable of more than 48 different video configurations. Each meeting space will allow users the capability of “casting” their screen or display to nearly any other monitor in the facility.

“When we talk about the State Emergency Response Team, agencies and organizations working together—local, state, federal, tribal, nonprofit and volunteer sector—all to address the complex issues we face, to respond and recover well that ultimately serve our citizens, partnership is at the core of everything that we do. Whether responding to a global pandemic, a natural hazard such as most recently hurricane Ian that came through, Hurricane Matthew as has been referenced earlier, a cyber or critical infrastructure event or the events that our public safety agencies respond to every day across this jurisdiction. It takes that whole community approach,” shared Director of the NC Division of Emergency Management Will Ray.