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​​Public Safety​​​

​​​Consistently delivering responsive, effici​​ent, inclusive and equitable quality services to the public and internal customers while providing a safe community to live, work and visit helps Broward County achieve its goal of ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNMENT. 

Top Achievements in FY2023

Regional Emergency Services

  • ​​Completion of the 16th tower in West Lake Park, a state-of-the-art public safety radio system and the final P25 radio tower.
  • The Broward County P25 system serves as a backup for the four non-regional cities and is also accessible to various state and/or federal agencies, should they be deployed into Broward County. Final acceptance is expected in Q4 2023.
  • Installed/maintained/upgraded all call-taking equipment Countywide, including non-regional public safety answering points (PSAPs).
  • Established backup plans allowing any PSAP that loses connectivity (including non-regional) to relocate to tertiary PSAPs (in-County) to receive calls.
  • In April 2023, the fourth and final phase of the Closest Unit Response (CUR) project went live. CUR allows the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system to calculate the estimated arrival time of available fire rescue units, regardless of location or jurisdictional boundary, and recommend the dispatch of the fastest unit. 

Highway and Bridge Maintenance Division: Mosquito Control

  • Broward County was awarded a U.S. Patent (a first for Broward County) for the invention of a larvicide-spraying system that effectively reduces the population of the mosquito that carries Zika, Dengue Fever, Yellow Fever and more while saving millions of dollars. The area-wide truck larviciding technology allows for the spraying of organic, environmentally-friendly larvicide from a truck-mounted sprayer.
  • Treated 700 acres of parks, roadside swales and other difficult-to-reach mosquito habitats.
  • Completed 12,500 mosquito control requests, placed 1,500 mosquito traps, more than 130,000 sampling and hand identification of adult and larval mosquito and treated 180,000 acres by truck-based application for killing flying and biting nuisance mosquitoes.

Major Events and Relief Efforts in FY2023

Historic Flooding in April 2023

On April 25, 2023, Fort Lauderdale experienced a 1,000 year rainfall event with 25.91 inches of rain, the most ever observed in a single day. Historic and catastrophic flash flooding took place across the greater Fort Lauderdale area. Several County buildings experienced flooding including the Governmental Center East, Nancy J. Cotterman Center, Broward Addition Recovery Center Central and Fire Station 32.

  • All the affected agencies quickly initiated their COOP (Continuity of Operations) plans, and within a very short period of time, were able to begin providing services to the community again.
  • Despite the record amount of more than 20 inches of rain at the Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport, the airport was back and running on a limited operational basis in less than 48 hours.
  • Within a week of the rainfall, Port Everglades was 99% operational with an estimated 12.86 million gallons of fuel dispensing daily.
  • Office of Economic and Small Business Development provided a Business Resiliency webinar to share information with Broward businesses regarding preparing their business to weather a disaster.
  • In collaboration with the Florida Department of Health, the Highway and Bridge Maintenance Division investigated and contained 204 travel-related mosquito-borne disease cases related to dengue and malaria. HBMD was awarded the Florida Resilient Grant to mitigate flooding in Boulevard Gardens in the Broward Municipal Service District. 
  • Solid Waste and Recycling Service provided additional bulk/debris collection services to the Broward Municipal Services District. An initial 30 tons of bulk waste and debris were collected immediately after the flood event.
  • Office of Public Communications was responsible for media relations and public safety information. Created Broward.org/Flood to keep the community informed and provide continuous FEMA assistance information.

Hurricane Ian Relief Efforts

Hurricane Ian made landfall as a strong Category 4 on the west coast of Florida in Lee County on September 28, 2022. Hurricane Ian was the fourth largest storm to hit Florida and has been one of the largest recovery missions in state history. Broward County assisted in recovery efforts for the west coast including: 

  • Traffic Engineering Division provided mutual aid support to the City of Cape Coral (Lee County) through a Statewide Mutual Aid agreement sponsored by the Florida Division of Emergency Management. Provided both personnel and vehicles for several weeks to help with the removal of damaged traffic signs, as well as the installation of new traffic signs. This effort ultimately aided in the restoration of roadway signs in Cape Coral to pre-hurricane conditions. This enabled the County to successfully recover $262,719.00 in reimbursement costs from the State of Florida for this Mutual Aid mission.
  • Parks and Recreation Division sent a team of employees to the west coast. As part of the State's All Hazards Team Region 7, the Park's emergency manager was tasked to help the victims in Hardee County as the lead coordinator for the emergency efforts. Members of the Parks Maintenance Group also helped to aid agencies in Charlotte County with debris and tree removal.
  • A team from Water & Wastewater Services departed for Lee County in response to a request for assistance in assessing utility systems and triaging recovery efforts.
  • Broward County Transit transported the recovery crews from the Florida Department of Transportation back and forth across I-75/Alligator Alley.
  • Office of Public Communications provided real-time pertinent information from the County's official emergency management Twitter account on the storm. *Received a National Association of County Information Officers (NACIO) Award of Excellence​


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