In Texas, the City of Arlington’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) is responsible for ensuring the health and safety of its residents and safeguarding against potential natural and human-caused disasters. Like any city, Arlington is exposed to hazards that can disrupt communities, cause damage and threaten lives. But adding to that is the complexity of a fast-growing metro area that offers a multitude of attractions and hosts several large-scale events each year, placing an even greater responsibility on the preparedness of Arlington’s OEM.
Arlington’s emergency resources are coordinated in collaboration with public and private partners from the Emergency Operations Center (EOC). Located in the OTT Cribbs Public Safety Center, the EOC is activated in response to large special events, natural disasters and man-made emergencies. These can include floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, civil unrest, public health emergencies and sporting-related events.
To improve their monitoring and response capabilities and make use of the latest tools that are available, Arlington engaged control room designer Activu to perform a comprehensive technology upgrade of the EOC, leading to the integration of a nearly 16-foot-wide, 4.5-foot-high (8x4) Planar® DirectLight® Ultra™ Series MicroLED video wall with a 0.6mm pixel pitch (DLU0.6).
The MicroLED video wall provides EOC operators with a mission-critical display for visualizing data and optimizing decision making. “We wanted a fine enough resolution so that people sitting two feet away from the video wall could view content just as easily as people sitting in the back of the room,” said OEM Emergency Management Administrator Irish Hancock. “The 0.6 pixel pitch was absolutely the right solution for our EOC.”
The premium Planar DirectLight Ultra Series MicroLED video wall not only delivers the comfortable close-up viewing the EOC needed but features other advancements that make it compelling for an always on environment. These include the self-adjusting Planar® ActivAlign™ module alignment technology that retains seamless visualization as well as the Planar® EverCare™ Lifetime Limited Warranty. In addition to the Planar DirectLight Ultra Series MicroLED video wall, thirteen Planar® Simplicity™ M Series 4K LCD displays ranging from 43-inch to 75-inch were also installed in the EOC, including directly outside the room and throughout other key spaces of the Public Safety Center.
