911 Center can
be overwhelmed;
non-emergency
calls a problem

If there is a department of county government that must do its job well, it’s the 911 Center.

No matter how good the county’s fire, police and EMS services are, their efforts will be diminished if there are procedural issues at the 911 Center .

Sheriff Chris Batten recently appealed to the county commissioners for help in resolving issues with the 911 Center and communications with his deputies.

When it comes to stressful jobs, 911 dispatchers are at the top of the list. We have a dedicated crew at the 911 Center here, but they need to be in an environment where they can do their jobs effectively.

Bear in mind that dispatchers not only answer phone calls, they also dispatch them, type in information for record keeping, plus maintain radio communications with responding units – all simultaneously. Usually, four dispatchers can handle what comes in, but sometimes, several emergencies happen concurrently. That’s when you don’t want to be understaffed.

Several problems listed by Batten and brought to light recently need to be addressed. Perhaps the first is the simplest: 911 dispatchers here have to handle too many non-emergency calls. Often, these are calls for situations like interrupted water or sewer service or lost pets.

Citizens should expect answers to these calls, but intermingling these with heart attack or house fire calls is putting too much stress in an already stressful environment.

Batten is correct in asserting that whoever is handling sheriff’s department calls needs to be a sheriff’s department specialist – someone who understands law enforcement and is familiar with sheriff’s department protocols.

Can these current issues be resolved by honing procedures for non-emergency calls and rethinking operations? Maybe, but the 911 Center’s performance will never be predictable because of the nature of emergencies, which often occur en masse.

There are plenty of areas where the county can cut expenses, but the 911 Center isn’t one of them. Error has to be on the side of caution.