Bad Links?
Other glitches?
Notify Webmaster

Fairbun gives 911 center new look

By BEN NELMS
bnelms@TheCitizenNews.com

There is a new look in a new area with upgraded equipment at Fairburn’s 911 center. Public Safety Director Walt Brown described the needed changes that will benefit city residents and response units alike. And at the heart of it all are the dispatchers that make the system work.

Located in the police department on U.S. Highway 29, the 911 center moved from its location in the middle of the building to the area on the south side of the facility where city court was once held, said Brown. The remainder of the building is also in process of remodeling with funds already budgeted, he added.

Brown said the city began working on a relocation and system upgrade approximately one year ago that would improve the center, increasing its size and upgrading the equipment. The city entered into a $260,000 contract with Bell South and Positron Public Safety Systems to upgrade existing equipment. The project is funded through the surcharge on monthly telephone bills.

“What we had was a very small area that had been the dispatch center for several years. It had become outdated and had become almost impossible to function as we should in that area,” he explained. “Dispatchers were doing their job as well as functioning as secretaries and taking all kinds of messages. They were performing tasks that they should not have been doing. And all of them do a tremendous job, they all pitch in. They know we’ve been in a transition. They come in early without being asked because they wanted to learn this new system. They used to have one screen and a radio in front of them. Now they’ve got four screens, the door monitor and the radio.”

Set to become a part of the new center in the near future is a new mapping feature that will allow dispatchers to provide officers with pinpoint locations by including cross streets and other pertinent information. The process to upgrade dispatcher’s radios has also begun, said Brown.

“With the new radios the dispatcher doesn’t have to dial a number. There are no dials. To answer a call they click on the computer icon. If they want to call out they use the keyboard,” he said.

Also included in the system are transfer numbers to local and regional public service and public safety agencies. A click on the screen, said Brown, will place the call.

Enhanced security is another of the upgrades to the 911 center. After 5 p.m., said Brown, dispatchers utilize a monitor to determine who is at the 911 entrance of the building. Once entering the outer door the dispatcher can buzz the person in through the inner door, if appropriate, or the dispatcher can have the person wait for an officer to assist. Prior to the 911 center conversion the building was open, with dispatchers also fulfilling the role as receptionists.

Other software systems, such as Computer Aided Dispatching (CAD) is planned for the next budget year. Once obtained, the system will be integrated to interface with police department operations. CAD compiles and stores reports and historical information and provides a feature to research specific cases.

Perhaps unknown to many residents, the 911 center receives a large volume of calls. Fire and EMS calls last year totaled 1,200 with approximately 9,000 additional calls for police. And calls to the center, said Brown, continue to the increase with the city’s rapid growth. Most recent figures show that Fairburn’s population exceeds 10,000 residents. Fire calls this calendar will likely reach 1,800 based on current data with law enforcement-related calls also showing an increase. That population increase, he said, played a significant role in the decision to upgrade the 911 center.

“We had to do this. Dispatchers couldn’t keep up, given the equipment we had in the old center,” Brown said. “They were spending a lot of time on tasks that, with the new equipment, is no longer necessary. Paperwork is almost gone. Now it’s all on the computer’s hard drive.”

Aside from an upgraded system and converted facilities, the job of a dispatcher requires a variety of skills that often go unnoticed. Every call that comes in is an emergency for the person making the call, Brown said.

“Dispatchers must be able to perform multiple tasks at the same time. They have to be able to maintain their composure. They are talking with our officers, our firemen and to other agencies all at the same time. And they have to be able to coordinate all kinds of incidents, from simple to complex, emergency and non-emergency, all at the same time,” Brown said with a smile. “This job is not just answering a phone. It’s what they do after they take that call and say ‘Fairburn 911.’ They have to maintain their calm and keep other people calm. They sometimes take a lot of abuse and they have to be able to sit there and take that abuse without letting it affect them and at the same time handle everything that’s going on in a clear and concise way. As for our dispatchers, I think I’ve got some of the best.”