With hurricane season approaching, the Spodak Dental Group team once again partners with the Delray Beach Police Department to provide the disaster relief team a safe “home base” shelter in the event of a severe weather occurrence. This is the fifth year that the team has opened up the facility to local first responders, and is only one of five local businesses to do so.

“We consider it an honor to be able to open up our doors to first responders in the event of an emergency,” said Dr. Craig Spodak, general dentist at Spodak Dental Group. “I designed our Gold LEED Certified facility to be environmentally conscious for the benefit of my community members, so this is just another way for the state-of-the-art facility to support our community and keep our local emergency personnel safe.”

Part of the Delray Beach Police Department’s annual hurricane planning and preparedness is securing remote locations (businesses) in the city to house officers during an actual hurricane, where they are safe and protected. This strategy allows them to deploy personnel directly to their geographical area when the storm has passed and prevents them from traveling in the storm or if roads are closed from damage or debris moments after the storm’s passing.

Locations must be structurally sound and be able to withstand a Category 3 (or higher) hurricane. A team of up to 12 officers/firefighters/paramedics will sleep, eat and shower at the business for one to three days, or until the area is considered safe.

The Spodak Dental Group facility can withstand wind speeds in excess of 180mph, which is above hurricane Category 5 classification; has a generator output of 50,000kw; and offers a full kitchen and shower facilities. The last time the Delray Beach Police Department utilized the office space was during and after Hurricane Dorian in 2019.

“Spodak Dental Group has been a tremendous help and has played a vital role in our deployment for the past five years during hurricane season by allowing the Delray Beach Police Department to utilize their facility for the berthing of our officers,” said Delray Beach Police Department Chief Javaro Sims. “They have created a safe and convenient place for our officers to operate from. This allows our officers to expedite our response when necessary. Spodak truly exemplifies our motto, ‘One Delray, One Community, One Police Department.’”

Now that’s community support and it’s finest!