U.S. Congressman Harold “Hal” Rogers (KY-05) announced today that the House of Representatives has approved $500,000 toward planning and construction of an addition to the Kentucky Emergency Operations Center (KEOC), operated by the Kentucky Division of Emergency Management. Rogers secured this funding in H.R. 2892, the Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2010.

“Kentucky has been hit hard by natural disasters. This year alone the ice storm impacted 103 counties in Kentucky and left thousands without power, shelter and protection. Last month, southern and eastern Kentucky was devastated by torrential floods and many still do not have a permanent home,” said Rogers. “It is imperative that we properly equip and centrally locate the Kentucky Emergency Operations Center to enable quick and coordinated response to a natural or man made disaster. If you do not have a scalable headquarters to handle a statewide crisis, you cannot properly adjust to the challenges we face and this funding gets the ball rolling on an operations center the Commonwealth needs.”

The $500,000 allocated to the Kentucky Division of Emergency Management will be used to assist with the planning and construction of a 7,126 square foot building addition to the existing KEOC which was built in 1975. Currently, the emergency operations staff is scattered across Frankfort in three different locations and during a disaster, FEMA and other local, state, and federal partner agencies have no space in the existing buildings to coordinate with the KEOC. The KEOC serves as Kentucky’s primary in-state operations response center for coordination during an emergency.

H.R. 2892 has been referred to the U.S. Senate for further consideration. Through his role as a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, Rogers supports important initiatives for the Commonwealth of Kentucky.