State-of-the-art incident command vehicle arrives in Butte County

CHICO, Calif. — Butte County is now home to a new state-of-the-art command vehicle. The California Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) is pre-positioning it with the Butte County Sheriff’s Office in anticipation of future disasters.

The $800,000 Incident Support Unit (ISU) is equipped with a satellite communications system, radios, computers, as well as a printer for large scale maps of disaster areas. The bulk of the interior of the vehicle is a meeting space with monitors, conference table and chairs. Officials say having the mobile home base to respond to disasters is critical.

"You need to have places where first responders, especially executives and decision makers, can come together and make decisions on how to proceed," said Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea.

The vehicle is also self-sustainable for 48 hours as long as there's diesel in the generator.

Officials say the vehicle also allows them to maintain secure communication and internet connection even if cell sites are down.

"There's a whole host of other technologies that are built into this system that would allow us to roll out and, within minutes, set up an incident command base and begin to operate in that area," Honea said.

The vehicle is one of three vehicles that are being pre-positioned throughout California. The other two will be stored in Santa Barbara and Sacramento counties with mutual aid coordinators. The Butte County Sheriff's Office is the regional mutual aid coordinator for Cal OES Region III. That includes 13 counties:Butte, Tehama, Shasta, Sutter, Trinity, Sierra, Siskiyou, Yuba, Colusa, Modoc, Lassen, Glenn and Plumas.

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