Eshoo gets $750,000 for HMB emergency center into bill

Rep. Anna Eshoo, has gotten $750,000 toward a new Emergency Operations Center and police station for Half Moon Bay written into the Homeland Security Appropriations Act being considered in Congress. The total cost is estimated to be $3.5 and $5 million, reports the County Times.

The facility, to be constructed on a site to be determined, would include necessities such as wireless Internet and satellite TV, backup generators and an independent electrical system.
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The prospect of losing all three roads that connect to the Bayside in a major earthquake is very real, [HMB Police Chief Dan] O’Keefe said. Two major earthquake faults bisect the coast, and the roads have already fallen victim to slides, flooding and erosion over the years.

It might even be possible to lose all land line and cell phone communication, which happened in April 2006 when a landslide cut an AT&T fiber optic cable on the coast. Even the police station lost telephone access.

Losing access to the Bayside would also mean losing access to rescue workers, most of whom live elsewhere. On a typical night shift, four Half Moon Bay police officers are on duty, along with 10 firefighters and six sheriff’s deputies — three of whom are spread out over Skyline Boulevard and the South Coast.

Half Moon Bay’s police department is currently housed in a fifteen-year-old "temporary" structure. The article suggested that the center could serve all Coastside public safety agencies, including the California Highway Patrol, the county Sheriff’s Office and fire and state parks officials and that Chief O’Keefe is "confident he’ll find enough funding for the project, possibly from the county, to begin planning for the new building next year".