Every April, I write to The Bee and our community to publicly thank the staff at the Newtown Emergency Communications Center (ECC). My team of nine professionals works through storms, accidents, disputes, fires, and medical emergencies — situations that prompt a call to 9-1-1 or one of our routine lines.
Each year, during National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, we are given a dedicated moment to recognize a group of professionals who are essential to public safety, yet often remain unseen. These are the unseen heroes, the calm during the storm, the ones who answer the call when someone’s life has been flipped upside down. These are our 911 Communications Specialists, the Nation’s true “First, First Responders.”
Rockport PD dispatchers honored as the community’s ‘first first responders’
When a frantic caller contacts the City of Rockport’s Public Safety Communications Center, the first voice they hear isn’t from a police officer.
For Mark Lallak, the evolution of 911 is personal. He watched it happen in real time from behind the dispatch console.
When Lallak was working as a 911 telecommunicator in the ’90s, most calls came from landlines. Because the phone numbers were associated with fixed locations, dispatchers had a name and address associated with each phone number. If someone called in, first responders almost always knew where they needed to go.
Then as cell phones emerged, everything changed.
The City of Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC) is celebrating National 9-1-1 Education Month to honor the outstanding contributions of the City’s 9-1-1 call takers and dispatchers. Additionally, OEMC will celebrate National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, April 12-18 and will hold the annual employee Awards Ceremony on April 16.
