Public safety complexes (PSC) are the nerve centers for municipalities and their citizens. As contained within a PSC, an emergency communications center’s (ECC) ability to quickly process incoming calls of an emergency nature and rapidly dispatch public safety resources can be a matter of life and death. In community-wide emergencies, whether natural or man-made, an emergency operating center plays a critical role in assessing the nature and extent of a disaster or unfolding threat and in coordinating/marshaling local, state, and even federal responses to protect the public.
Obviously, because there are many agencies involved that have to be coordinated, the more centralized the functions of a PSC/ECC can be, right down to physical co-location and sharing of services within the same complex, the more efficient and effective this vital public service can become. The Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) called for such consolidation in its 2010 final report on Key Findings and Effective Practices for Public Safety Consolidation: