Opened officially November 4, San Diego Gas & Electric`s (SDG&E) new $1.5 million state-of-the-art emergency operations center serves as the command post whenever a significant incident impacts the area`s electric and natural gas systems. The 6,500-square-foot facility, located at SDG&E headquarters in the Kearny Mesa area, features a situation room with 33 computer workstations for team members.

"With our new emergency center, we can assess the status of our energy system more efficiently and effectively than ever," said Edwin A. Guiles, president of SDG&E. "It provides the news media, local government, emergency response agencies and others with a centralized point of contact during a major incident that impacts electric or natural gas service to the San Diego region."

The new emergency center assesses power and natural gas grids and coordinate operations from the facility, located at the company`s headquarters in the Kearny Mesa area of the San Diego metropolitan region. The center features:

- A situation room with 33-computer screens and individual workstations for emergency response team members. The team includes employees from customer communications, power and natural gas operations, human resources, governmental relations, regulatory affairs, finance, and customer relations.

- Three wall-sized projection monitors measuring 7 feet by 5 feet. These screens will display damage-assessment reports, outage information, significant events, news updates and other key data.

- A separate communications center where local and national television and radio broadcasts and police and fire radio calls can be monitored.

- A press conference room where members of the news media can be briefed on incidents involving company facilities and personnel.

- A "command and control center" where senior management will convene to monitor crises and make critical decisions.

"This new facility revolutionizes the way we communicate with one another in an emergency and gives us the opportunity to disseminate vital information to the general public and the news media quickly and efficiently," said Steven D. Davis, vice president of distribution operations.