Last week, members of The Island School were present at the opening of SEEP’s (South Eleuthera Emergency Partners) second Emergency Operation Center (EOC) in South Eleuthera. SEEP is a “community-led organization that serves and enriches the communities of South Eleuthera by providing fire and medical transport services, as well as community outreach programs.” The vision of SEEP is to create “safer communities by establishing a network of emergency operation centers that provide essential community services. This will lead to community growth, as well as economic development which will continue to benefit future generations.”
According to an article on the opening, published in The Eleutheran, members of the South Eleuthera communities, as well as some as far north as James’ Cistern “came out to celebrate the official commissioning of the new center and to witness the handing over ceremony for the Fire Truck–to the Royal Bahamas Police Force…The new Weymss Bight EOC facility will provide under-served communities in the surrounding South Eleuthera area with emergency fire, ambulance vehicles and operations space. This new facility will also eliminate twenty-five minutes from the driving time necessary to reach the surrounding South Eleuthera communities from the present EOC facility located in Tarpum Bay, according to [Shaun] Ingraham”, CEO and Founder of One Eleuthera Foundation. Ingraham went on to tell The Eleutheran that the “long-term goal for the site is to make the EOC multi-functional to include several other community programs…including farmer’s markets, shared craft workshop facilities and a community meeting space”.