Dallas County leaders officially opened the doors to the county’s new Emergency Operations Center on Wednesday. The nearly 37,000 square-foot center now serves as a central hub for county leadership and emergency management teams to coordinate response and operations during crises.

The first operational use of the facility will be for the FIFA World Cup’s Joint Operations Center (JOC). Shannon spoke one-on-one with the federal coordinators of FIFA World Cup Dallas on how the center will serve as the center for safety and security over the next 39 days.

As millions of fans and visitors start to descend upon DFW for the FIFA World Cup, federal, state and local law enforcement will take their seats at the Joint Operations Center at Dallas County’s newly opened Emergency Operations Center.

“That’s everything from the people who’ve been doing the planning all the way to emergency services that might be activated in any such event,” Christina Foley, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Secret Service Dallas Field Office and federal coordinator for FIFA World Cup Dallas, said.

Foley says the JOC will be led by the FBI, which set up the center, along with Dallas County, to best coordinate communication between agencies.

“The way that this is set up is kind of by specialty, so law enforcement has a table, but that’s law enforcement from all different jurisdictions across the metroplex and then, fire has a table, emergency management has a table, transportation, as well as federal agencies, state agencies,” Foley said.

There are more than nine emergency operations centers in North Texas for the World Cup. The JOC will serve as the central hub in constant communication with the 11 host cities and other agencies across the country.

“This also gives us the ability to talk to joint operations centers in all the other cities as well so we can speak to each other across the nation, as well as back to DC, the White House Task Force, to FIFA, who would be involved in sitting in here as well,” Foley said.

“We could only prepare for so much, and we’re ready to go,” Tom Aguilera, Supervisory Air Marshal in Charge of the Federal Air Marshal Service in Dallas and deputy federal coordinator for DHS for FIFA World Cup Dallas, said.

Aguilera has been coordinating federal, state, and local partners for the last two-plus years.

“We’ve been working closely with Texas Department of Emergency Management, going to Austin to do tabletops. I’ve been working with our locals to do tabletops in Arlington, and in Dallas, and all over the region, bringing in our federal partners to be part of that,” Aguilera said.

Aguilera says about 200 people will be in the JOC daily and he’s confident North Texas law enforcement is well prepared to respond to any potential safety threats.