On January 6, 2017, a tragedy beyond our imagination occurred at the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport when a lone gunman shot and killed five people and wounded six others in Terminal 2. As a result, there was an evacuation of all the terminals and passenger areas. This resulted in more than 23,000 personal items left behind. For a week, more than 50 Aviation Department employees worked in partnership with a baggage consultant to sort and identify those items. More than 90 percent of the items were returned to their owners one week later.

Lessons have been learned from this unspeakable tragedy and measures have been taken to increase public safety. Broward County strives every day to ensure that it’s doing the best it can to protect the lives of all residents and visitors and enhance public safety and defend public property, not only at the airport, but all county government buildings.

Broward County operates a Regional Consolidated 911 system with 29 of 31 municipalities participating. Plantation and Coral Springs operate their own Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs).

Broward County is committed to upgrading and enhancing this system. In May 2017, the County’s three regional Consolidated Dispatch Centers began using Motorola Solutions' PremierOneTM Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) system to more quickly and reliably communicate critical information with police, fire and other first responders to help residents, business owners and visitors during emergencies. The new CAD system is one component of Broward County's $113 million investment in emergency communication operations and system improvements. Because of recent improvements, the system now handles more than 2.4 million calls annually and has one of the fastest response times in the nation.

Also in May 2017, the Board of County Commissioners approved an agreement with Motorola for the replacement of the County’s existing public safety radio system with a new 700MHz APCO Project 25 Phase II system. This new system will add new tower sites to improve mission critical communications for first responders. It’s expected to be completed by the end of the 4th Quarter, 2019.

The County is also investing in establishing a local government radio system, replacing the current fire alerting system, replacing the alphanumeric paging system, and replacing the computer aided dispatch system, among other items. Still to come, Text to 911, expected in December 2018.

Emergency Preparedness and Response

Following a rigorous and months-long assessment, the Emergency Management Accreditation Program

EMAP) granted national accreditation to Broward County's system for disaster preparedness and response.  Earning EMAP accreditation required Broward County to undergo an extensive assessment of compliance with requirements in 64 industry-recognized emergency management standards, including planning, resource management, training, exercises, evaluations, corrective actions, communications and administration.

The achievement marked the culmination of more than a years' worth of focused effort by the Broward County Emergency Management Division, Broward County agencies, and community partner agencies represented on the Broward Emergency Response Team (BERT). The emergency preparedness and response efforts of Broward County municipalities, first responders, numerous not-for-profit agencies, volunteer groups and the business community all contributed to the EMAP accreditation.

Broward County has also been designated a “Storm Ready” community by the National Weather Service.

In addition to public education and outreach, the County’s emergency preparedness efforts include a commitment to response team readiness. And ready they were when Hurricane Irma hit South Florida in September 2017, and Hurricane Matthew had Broward in its sights in October 2016. Fortunately, Matthew made a glancing blow, causing power outages but no severe damage. Hurricane Irma, on the other hand, caused millions of dollars in damage, with some people left recovering months after the storm.

Ongoing communications kept residents and visitors up to date before, during, and after the storm, including tweets from Broward County’s @ReadyBroward Twitter page, followed by more than 26,000 residents. Many County agencies sprang into action to help those in shelters, cleaning up storm debris, and find shelter for those whose homes were damaged. Teams fanned out across Broward County to assess possible damage to the Port, Airport, Parks, Bridges and County buildings.

AlertBroward, the County’s Official Emergency Notification System was launched in Fiscal Year 2017, and used extensively during Hurricane Irma to inform the public and County employees. Residents and business owners are urged to sign up to receive critical information quickly in a variety of situations, such as severe weather, evacuations, or public health emergencies. Subscribers decide how they want to receive notifications – text, mobile phone call, landline call, email or a combination of all options. Register at Broward.org/Emergency​.

Animal ​Care

Broward County opened a new Animal Care and Adoption Center in November 2016. The facility features air-conditioned kennels, an outdoor pet interaction area, meet and greet adoption rooms and state-of-the-art surgery suites. The new shelter also achieved Silver LEED (Leadership in Emergency and Environmental Design) certification.

Animal Care augments its funding with grants. The Division obtained $195,000 in grant funding in the FY17 fiscal year. Through its sterilization programs, more than 12,500 pets were spayed or neutered. More than 108,000 rabies licenses were sold, resulting in $708,000 additional revenue to be used to fund low-to-no-cost sterilization programs in 2018.

Animal Care also introduced an addition to its WebPortal that allows residents to apply for a voucher online. This feature allows residents free sterilization of Community Cats and helps the Division build partnerships within our community.​​