A National Emergency Operations Center will go up at the Center of Operations of the Health Plaza (Plaza de la Salud) in Santo Domingo. The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has consulted with the Dominican Civil Defense department and helped develop the design for the new center. The construction will be funded by the Interamerican Development Bank as part of the Reconstruction Program made available to help the country recover from Hurricane Georges that hit in September 1998. The project was presented to the press by General Jose Antonio de los Santos, director of the Civil Defense department and by the coordinator of FEMA assistance programs in the DR, Joshua Batkin, who is special assistant to the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
