Putnam's response:New emergency center, dispatchers welcome

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An editorial that was found in today's Journal News. Pretty nicely done IMO. They must like Putnam, lol! I like how they make a subtle point that a centralized facility is better to coordinate resources countywide.

Putnam's response  

Journal News Editorial

(Original publication: March 4, 2005)

What a difference a decade or so can make. And technology.

Remember back in the early '90s when Putnam County was in a collective uproar about who should handle calls for emergency assistance? Should it be solely the Sheriff's Department, which under former Sheriff Robert Thoubboron wasn't quite as ubiquitous as he wanted it to be? Local police departments, like Carmel's? A single answering point to better coordinate and deploy resources countywide? Or several ones to serve certain geographic areas?

The $12 million Putnam County Emergency Operations and Training Facility in Carmel officially opened for business last fall. Wednesday, newly trained dispatchers sat down at computers and used a wealth of computerized data to begin handling what has amounted to about 15,000 emergency calls annually.

Twelve dispatchers are on staff at the Emergency Operations Center — eight are full-time employees and four work part time. Three full-time dispatchers had transferred from the Sheriff's Office to the spacious dispatch center, as did one part-timer who went to full time. Under the old system, civilian dispatchers in the Sheriff's Office handled 911 calls for police, fire and ambulance.

The dispatchers "graduated" Tuesday after extensive training from the Sheriff's Department's emergency services and communications personnel. They will answer 911 calls and, within three to six months, wireless 911 calls that currently go to state police. Many of the wireless calls, barely a blip on the communications scene a decade ago, are expected to originate from places like Interstate 84, which cuts through Putnam.

The Sheriff's Office, under Donald Smith, will act as back up to the center, but will primarily be free to field other routine and business calls — about 220,000 of them annually. In other words, more than enough calls for help to go around.