CARSON CITY — The governor’s decision to unify homeland security and emergency management functions has already fixed many of the problems officials say have plagued the state’s efforts in those areas since Sept. 11, 2001.
Frank Siracusa, longtime director of emergency management, said Nevada — like many other states — realized that it made no sense to have one operation to deal with potential terrorism threats and another to deal with natural disasters and every other type of emergency.
“Whether it’s a terrorist attack on a building or a gas line leak that blows a building up, it’s now all under one roof,” he said.
Siracusa said in Carson City, they are literally under one roof — the Emergency Operations Center in the Nevada National Guard complex in southeast Carson City.
Not only is the communications and operations center for emergency management housed there, the so-called “fusion center” which is responsible for intelligence gathering and interpretation is there along with northern command Nevada Highway Patrol dispatch, the National Guard’s joint operations center and the administration for the Division of Forestry, the lead agency when there is a wildfire.
The Carson City fusion center and the operations center are also tied in with their counterparts in Reno and Las Vegas.
Siracusa said after 9/11, there was a push by the federal government and states to create programs to find and stop terrorists. Many, including Nevada, started with a homeland security director assigned to the governor’s office and began trying to create a system to identify and handle threats around that person.
“What they failed to realize is that the infrastructure was already there,” he said. “All we had to do is enhance the communication.”
The governor’s office drew some criticism earlier this year when it eliminated the Homeland Security Director’s position and moved his responsibilities to Emergency Management.
