City ready in case of an emergency

AUSTIN (KXAN) - It may not be your typical emergency situation, but the Emergency Operations Center is up and running this weekend, and it will be staffed and ready around the clock for the Formula 1 weekend.

• Your F1 Headquarters

From a small room in East Austin, officials can keep an eye out all throughout the city -- 24 hours a day, around the clock until the event is over.

Normally, they're dealing with some kind of emergency event, but F1 is big enough for the Emergency Operations Center to fire up all systems.

"The overall goal is to monitor and have an overall picture of what's happening at the COTA track and our community," said Scott Swearengin, with the city of Austin Homeland Security.

The EOC is one of five command centers across town for F1, and from inside they can see just about anything.

They're using the city of Austin cameras, Department of Public Safety cameras, and even helicopter video.

That's a lot of ways to watch in case accidents, traffic hiccups or something else unexpected happens.

The track, Austin Police Department, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and the state Capitol will all have command center operations taking place during the weekend.

It's a big operation that got started off with a pretty quiet Friday.

It's a long run that will last even longer than the race, and the small room in East Austin will be up for every second of it.