|
 At the physical heart of the Logan County Dispatch
Office is the Emergency Operation Center.
The center is located in the Logan County Safety Complex in Lincoln.
The department includes offices for Hedrick and Langley, a huge
mechanical room that houses a few dozen computer servers all
connected together and working at full capacity on a daily basis,
and the call center.
Hedrick claims responsibility for the computers, saying that keeping
the equipment running and up to date is her responsibility. She
works with a local computer expert Curt Schleich to keep everything
running on a daily basis. Schleich comes to the center about once a
week to check on things and run some maintenance so that the
computers, which run 24/7/365, do so with no hick-ups.
Hedrick’s concerns also extend into the offices and call center
where there are more than a dozen computer monitors, radios,
telephones, and much more; all connected together providing the data
entry points for the more than 12,000 emergency calls plus about
23,000 administrative calls that come in to the department annually.
Langley’s office is larger than Hedrick’s, but it is because when
there are emergencies that need many hands on deck, her office
becomes an annex to the operations center.
Langley’s office is divided into a work space where she handles the
administrative portions of her job duties. Those job duties include
scheduling, doing payroll, bookkeeping and financial management of
the department, among other things.
She also works with Hedrick, who is a bit modest about her role in
the department, to do the many reports that must be created to show
the performance of the department.
When there is a lot of action going on in the operations center,
Langley can turn her chair around and she is instantly part of the
response team in the other room, firing up the fifth of five total
call centers.
The many electronic tools in Langley’s office are comparable to what
is seen in each of the call stations in the operations center.
Multiple monitor screens, keyboards, mice, radios and telephones,
make up the electronic tools that are used, many all at once when an
emergency is underway.
Langley says that when she is working at her real desk, she can
still hear everything that is going on in the operations center.
When things start getting hectic, like the day an airplane crashed
on the interstate, she can spin around and join her team in taking
care of business.
In addition, Langley’s office can become the command center for the
Emergency Management Agency when there are severe weather events
ongoing in the community.
Stepping into the operations center is like stepping into an
entirely different world. While Hedrick and Langley’s offices look
very typical to any office, with perhaps the exception of a few more
computer screens, stepping into the operations center is like
walking into a sci-fi movie.
Getting into the center is the first challenge. With the room being
secured from the outside, it’s a matter of, if you don’t know the
code, you don’t get in. Once the door opens, one enters a dark room
with a not unpleasant blue glow. Dim lighting at the floorboards
illuminates a ramp. It feels like walking onto the bridge of a
spaceship to some degree.
Walls of computer monitors emit light silhouetting high backed
chairs. The chair occupants focus on the screens.
There are four workstations in the operations center. Each equipped
with radios, telephones, keyboards, and a half a dozen computer
monitors. Each monitor performs a task when the dispatcher commands.
With all of those monitors in play at once during certain
situations, it is obvious why Langley says that dispatch
telecommunicators must be proficient at multitasking.
Above the monitors in each of the four workstations is a pole with a
cylindrical light. The light offers two colors: red and orange, a
signal to others in the room of the actions that are ongoing at the
stations.
When a call comes in, the light shines its orange glow, telling
everyone in the room that the dispatcher is taking a call. When the
light switches to red, it tells the room that the dispatcher is now
talking on the radio with first responders.
While the dispatchers on duty can talk to one another during their
shift, the appearance of that light tells everyone that it is time
to make the room as quiet as possible so that the dispatcher may
hear and interact with the caller and/or first responder.
And of course, there is the Priority Dispatch flip cards laying on
the desk beside the telecommunicator. The cards are the guide to
talking to callers about medical emergencies. With the guidance of
the cards, the staff member is able to determine the immediate needs
of the caller, and at the same time input information into the
computers, and relay instructions to first responders.
Cathy Hopp
Sydney Zamora
On the day of the tour, Cathy Hopp and Sydney Zamora
were the two dispatchers on duty. It was a calm day for emergencies
in Logan County, though the light pole did come on once during the
tour and everyone had to stop talking so that Zamora respond.
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In addition to all the equipment that is needed for
the 911 calls that come in, additional monitors are located
strategically so they can be viewed from the two main workstations.
Those monitors provide video from security cameras at the safety
complex as well as the Lincoln Police Department located across town
on Fifth Street.
There are also separate monitors at the workstations that have
internet connectivity outside the 911 network. Langley explained
that when the staff is not taking calls, they have other duties to
perform, including their ongoing education.
The emergency telephone communication system and 911
has changed dramatically over the years, and continues to change
regularly even today. To keep up, and to keep their certifications
up-to-date, staff do online training sessions when they are not
taking calls.
The workers stay busy in other ways as well. When emergency calls
are not coming into the center, other calls may be. The staff
handles all types of calls that are not related to 911 including
serving as the back-up when staff at the safety complex or the
police station are not available. They also take non-emergency calls
from the public, and they answer calls from first responders and
other local agencies.
Dispatchers also work to put court orders into the system so that
information is available to law enforcement when they call in. For
example: orders of protection and warrants for arrest are placed in
the system.
As an example, when a law enforcement officer radios in during a
traffic stop, the name and driver’s license number of the person is
given to the 911 dispatch. The system instantly provides a list of
any outstanding warrants, any orders of protection, and other
information that is on file about that person.
When emergency calls do come in from the public, the dispatchers are
ready to switch gears and handle what is in front on them. Langley
says that in a perfect world, calls would come in one at a time.
Then the process would be for one dispatcher to be on the phone
taking information while the second person would be providing back
up and communicating with first responders.
However, it isn’t often that it happens that way. Often times, when
a call comes in, say for an accident on the highway, the 911
operations center will receive numerous calls from motorists, all
about the same accident. Therefore, staff on duty are busy taking
information and sometimes piecing together the puzzle based on the
single bits of information that each caller is able to provide.
Langley said that the goal of adding a floor supervisor to each
shift is to hopefully make it possible for serious events to have
two people actively working one call, one person taking information,
and the other relaying it to first responders.
While the day of the tour was quiet, Langley said it does get hectic
and wild in the operation center sometimes. During really big
events, such as the day the old Oasis Center in downtown Lincoln was
struck by lightning and caught fire, off-duty staff are called in to
man the phones and work with the many agencies that are involved on
the scene.
While the day of the plane crash and the day of the Oasis fire,
brought lots of calls for the Lincoln area, it must be noted that
the Logan County 911 dispatch handles calls from all over the
county. From San Jose to New Holland, Middletown, Elkhart, to the
far eastern parts of the county such as Cornland and Latham, and all
points in between, when someone calls 911, they speak with a
dispatcher in Lincoln.
The operations center in Lincoln takes more than 30 thousand calls a
year, which is more than 100 calls per 24-hour period, or about four
an hour on the average. Most of those calls are coupled with
additional communication to first responders, or other agencies
within the county.
But, some calls could have been and could be made to other numbers.
Not all the calls made to 911 are emergencies as was noted by
Hedrick, who says that one type call they get at the center is for
general information, such as “What time does the parade start?”
This leads into the hint of the day that comes from Sarah Combs and
also serves as the teaser for the next segment in the series on the
local 911 Dispatch.
Sarah Combs
Did you know...
"Not only does Logan Dispatch handle 911 calls in Logan County, but
we also handle all non-emergency calls. A small list of examples of
non-emergency calls is loose or stray animals, setting up standbys
to retrieve belongings and debris in the roadway. Remember, dialing
911 should be used in an emergency. Calling local numbers for
non-emergency events keeps the 911 lines available for emergencies.
For non-emergency incidents in the city of Lincoln, you can call
217-732-2151. For non-emergency incidents out in the county, you can
call 217-732-4159. Also, have patience and listen to the phone tree.
You could reach the appropriate person you need to speak with
without ever having to connect with Logan Dispatch."
[Nila Smith] |
