Very soon, a few hundred officials from dozens of agencies will be sitting in a large room. Their job will be to keep a watchful eye on just about everything going on around downtown Tampa and the Republican National Convention.
The Secret Service doesn't want the location of the Multi-Agency Communications Center, or MACC, to get out. However, they briefly lifted the curtain back on a site that, once it goes active, will be home for representatives of around 60 groups until all Convention related activities are done. John Joyce leads the Secret Service’s Tampa office.
“FEMA, FBI, Secret Service, Tampa PD, you name it, federal agencies, state, local, county, everybody that has a stake in the Convention.”
That even includes utility companies like TECO and Verizon, and agencies like Amtrak and Hillsborough County Public Schools. Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor says putting all these groups under one roof helps keep open lines of communication that were formed two years ago, when Tampa was chosen as the 2012 Convention site.
“So they’re all able to communicate in real-time, to receive information, to vet that information, to communicate it and come up with a course of action.”
The first thing you notice in the MACC is 3 huge video screens. When we were there, a welcome message scrolled past, along with the logos of some of the agencies housed there. Eventually, those screens will be filled with video feeds from around the Tampa Bay area. And you can bet one screen everyone will be watching is the radar, as Tropical Storm Isaac’s track and its possible effect on the Convention remains—pardon the phrase—the elephant in the room.
"The only thing predictable about these storms is the unpredictability."
Chief Castor said if Isaac forces any changes in plans for the convention, law enforcement is ready to react.
“Yeah, there’ll be a point where we will go from our security plan into our emergency management plan, and it’s a very robust plan, we’ve exercised it a number of times. If the time comes and that call is made, we’re prepared.”
And she stressed, no matter the weather, law enforcement is ready to handle any sort of protests.
“It doesn’t change it for us, we’ll just put on raincoats. We’re gonna make sure, as we have stated all along, our mission is to ensure that everyone has a safe platform on which to express themselves and that’s what we’re going to be out there doing, come rain or shine.”
A number of the agencies in the MACC will have a say in whether to delay or even cancel the Convention. Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee says Pinellas County Emergency Management may be one of the biggest voices.
“You know, having most of the delegates over there, if they tell me we’re going to have evacuations over there, then that’s more than a traffic woe for us, that’s a serious concern for us to flow that traffic and maybe even contraflow some of the roads.”
So from traffic to weather to police activity—that word “Communications” remains the most important part of the MACC’s operations—and that’s what makes John Joyce with the Secret Service confident.
“We wouldn’t be where we are today without cooperation, and that's the one unique thing about the Tampa Bay area, it's got a history of cooperation, certainly between the law enforcement entities, and now with the R-N-C being rolled into it, they've followed suit."