Kids & Family

Garwood Police Get a Hand From Westfield's Mobile Command Center

Garwood Police were stumped on how to deal with power loss due to the installation of a new generator, until the neighboring department offered a fix.

Recently, the Garwood Police Department was awarded funding through a NJ Office of Emergency Management sub-grant for disaster preparedness to purchase a new stand-by generator to power Borough Hall and the police department.

Unfortunately, to install the new unit required shutting down power to the entire building for several hours. The loss of power required Borough Hall to be closed for general business on Wednesday, but the Garwood Police Department was determined to provide the same level of service and handle the situation with a minimum of inconvenience to the public.

Weeks in advance of the anticipated date, pre-planning began and the realization of how monumental the task of maintaining simple requirements such as basic phone service, 911 systems, radio communications and enough power to operate a few computer work stations to write and maintain report records became very apparent. Many options were looked into – transferring vital jobs to neighboring police departments and moving portable generators in with power cords snaked through the building, but all were less than ideal.

But the department received a bit of good luck and a lot of good will from a neighbor – the Westfield police department. Over the summer, Westfield Police purchased a new mobile command center tailor-made for the job of keeping the Garwood police department online.

Equipped with four work stations, the mobile command center has the ability to be programmed with all of the radio, phone and computer systems including 911 that are required to run the police department.

When Garwood police Chief Bruce Underhill first heard about the new command center he approached Westfield Police Chief David Wayman about the possibility of using the equipment. Chief Wayman was more than happy to come to the aid of Garwood, says Underhill.

On the morning of Nov. 13, as Borough Hall went dark, the mobile command center operated by Westfield Captain Chris Battiloro and Sergeant Mike Walsh, along with Garwood Lieutenant Jim Wright and Dispatchers John Drone and Cassey Crooks opened shop in the new but thankfully temporary Garwood Police Department located just 25 short feet from the original.

The command center made such an effortless transition that the only way to know the building was empty and without power was to drive by and see it for yourself, said Chief Underhill.

Chief Underhill and the members of the Garwood Police Department would like to thank Chief Wayman and the members of the westfield Police Department for making a tough day a great success.


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