Belfor foots bill for Forest Acres police center

Forest Acres isn’t paying a dime for temporary use of the $1.65 million mobile command center parked beside the city’s flood-damaged law enforcement headquarters.

Belfor, a global disaster recovery company, instead is footing the bill for the tractor-trailer that has housed the police department’s dispatch unit since early October, said Sheldon Yellen, the company’s chief executive officer.

Yellen estimated the command center costs up to $4,000 to operate each day. Belfor also provided a $2.1 million command center to the Richland County Sheriff’s Department after the flooding, but that tractor-trailer has since been returned, Yellen said.

“It’s a little different, but a lot of people have things different going on in their lives right now,” said Forest Acres Police Chief Gene Sealy. “It’s helped us manage what we’re doing as far as protecting the citizens of Forest Acres.”

Yellen said Belfor’s tractor-trailer at Forest Acres will stay until police no longer need it.

That could be a while. Forest Acres hasn’t yet started renovating the station’s first floor, much of which had to be gutted after raw sewage and floodwaters poured in Oct. 4. Belfor’s command centers rolled into town the next day, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said.

“We couldn’t have went out and bought this type of equipment when we needed it at the last minute,” Lott said. “For them to just come in and bring it here, set it up, maintain it – you couldn’t beat that.”

This story was originally published November 2, 2015 at 2:23 PM.