Lincoln County Emergency Services Says Goodbye to One of Their Own (ME)

Lincoln County Communications Center Supervisor Mark Creamer always put family first. And his community was his family. That’s the consensus of the people who knew him and of the people who worked with him.

Creamer was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in June of 2021. He died at the Maine Medical Center in Portland on Dec. 22, at the age of 57. He was escorted back home on Dec. 23 by a procession that included the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, 15 fire departments, all four Lincoln County police departments, all four Lincoln County ambulance services, members of the community, his coworkers, his friends, and his family… READ MORE

Franklin Co. Emergency Communications using Phone App for precise location of emergencies (KS)

Franklin Co. Emergency Communications using Phone App for precise location of emergencies (KS)

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – “What3Words” uses a GPS tracking system that breaks down the world into 10 feet by 10 feet virtual squares.

What3Words is an app and website developed in the UK that’s trying to make it easier to find people in emergencies, in crowds, or in remote parts of the world. The site cut the world into 57 trillion 10′ x 10′ squares where instead of finding longitude and latitude numbers, they use three unique words…

Language service to help Smyth deputies, dispatch (VA)

A language barrier can be difficult in any circumstances, but when first-responders and those they’re trying to help can’t understand one another, the hurdle can be life-threatening. Last week, the Smyth County Board of Supervisors took action to ease communication for everyone.

The challenge of communicating with those who speak languages other than English presents itself regularly on Interstate 81…

FirstNet innovates disaster recovery for emergency management

By Bruce Fitzgerald, Senior Public Safety Advisor, First Responder Network Authority

FirstNet helps with the four phases of emergency management – preparedness(link is external)response(link is external), recovery, and mitigation. I’d like to dive deeper into how FirstNet helps with the recovery phase.

Communicating during the recovery phase

Every year, disasters put millions of Americans in danger and cost billions of dollars in property damage. After the threat of harm from a disaster has passed, the recovery phase starts. Recovery can take months or years to get a community back on its feet. It’s critical to quickly start damage assessments and applications for financial assistance following a disaster.

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Durham 911 call taker says training struggles, worker burnout have led to ongoing operator shortage (NC)

DURHAM, N.C. (WNCN) – Almost half of the 911 operator positions in Durham are vacant, according to data on the city of Durham’s website.

There are currently 28 vacancies out of 60 call taker positions, according to the website. One year ago when CBS 17 first started covering the shortage of 911 operators, there were 30 vacant positions.47% of Durham 911 call taker positions are vacant – almost the same amount as 1 year ago 

Why can’t the Durham Emergency Communications Center build up the staffing numbers? … READ MORE

Appeals Court Denies Petitions for Review of Unlicensed Use of 6 GHz

An appeals court rejected petitions for review from multiple organizations asking that the FCC’s rules allowing unlicensed use in the 6 GHz band be remanded back to the FCC for reconsideration.

In April 2020, the FCC adopted rules allowing for unlicensed use of the 6 GHz band, leading to backlash from public safety and critical infrastructure groups who argued that such use could lead to harmful interference to key critical communications systems.

In January 2021, multiple public-safety, industry and critical infrastructure groups filed petitions for review with the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia asking the court to remand the rules back to the FCC for reconsideration. The court later combined all of those petitions into one petition…