World Cup: Office of Emergency Management provides update on Seattle’s ‘Event Operations Plan’

After city officials found Seattle was spending less on its Office of Emergency Management than peer cities like Denver and Portland, a 44% boost to the department’s budget should help make the city safer as it hosts six matches of the FIFA Men’s World Cup this summer.

The Seattle City Council’s public safety committee heard an update on OEM preparations Tuesday morning.

According to the presentation (PDF), the boost to a budgeted $4.43 million in OEM spending this year will include increased efforts around “Alert & Notification, Community Safety Ambassador program, Outreach & Education,” and training initiatives.

Those boosts will help as OEM helps ramp up Unified Command Post activity for the matches coordinating 45 different departments, and County, State, and Federal Government officials to “coordinate FIFA related operations taking place in the city.”

The Unified Command Posts will be operational “9-12 hours on the six game days,” according to the presentation.

Additionally, OEM officials are planning to support Pride activities across the city including block parties on Capitol Hill during the FIFA matches including the game between Egypt and Iran at Seattle Field on Friday, June 26th that been designated as an LGBTQ+ “Pride Match” by the city’s local organizing committee.

CHS reported here on other safety preparations including increased efforts to address “unpermitted vendor” enforcement during the tournament.

CHS looked here at how Seattle is spending some $32 million in World Cup funding.

Officials are predicting about 750,000 will attend the Seattle matches.

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