Wake County Emergency Management to activate new Operations Center for Tropical Storm Debby

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- Wake County Emergency Management plans to activate its Operations Center on Thursday morning as it prepares to respond to Tropical Storm Debby.

"We're looking to activate our EOC to what we call a level four. It's our lowest level of activation right now based off the current forecast, but we're prepared to move it to a level three or higher should we need to be able to respond or do some more coordination," explained Darshan Patel, Wake County Emergency Management's Operations Manager.

The county opened the facility last fall, citing population growth and severe weather as two main reasons behind the investment.

Located in downtown Raleigh, Patel noted the technological upgrades in effect.

"(Before) a lot of it was done manually. We were looking at paper maps in some cases or we were saying, 'Hey, I know this area. Can we get this person to come in here and look at this?' Whereas now we can try to look at it, at least at the surface level in one map, and then bring in the right partners to help fill in some of that gap information," said Patel.

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The integrated map allows personnel to view everything from NCDOT cameras to power outages to dam locations.

"We can continue to get real time feeds from our partners. We can see the statuses of our emergency rooms. So if they're seeing an influx of people or they're having capacity issues and they shut down the ERs, it'll show up on the map for us as a red, yellow or green as well," Patel shared.

This additional information will allow staff to direct crews where needed, while saving valuable time in emergency situations. As for direct notifications, Patel encouraged residents to sign up for ReadyWake Alerts.

"If we do have flooding in your area, we can not only use the Federal Wireless Emergency Alert System, but we can contact you by phone, text, email the way you choose, if you've signed up," Patel said.