by AllThingsECC.com | Jan 1, 2022 | Comm Center News
Marion County’s 911 center experienced an hourlong outage after the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Day, while hundreds of calls poured in reporting celebratory gunshots.
“I have never seen anything even close to what happened last night,” said Michael Hubbs, director of the Marion County 911 Center, which as of Saturday is housed within the new Metropolitan Emergency Services Agency.
From 12:02 to 12:03 a.m., his center received 206 calls. In the first five minutes, there were more than 500.
That’s when the dispatch system went down, and stayed down through the hour. By 1 a.m., it started to slowly come back; by 1:45 a.m., the center was fully functional…
by ECC Editor | Jan 1, 2022 | Comm Center News
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
by AllThingsECC.com | Jan 1, 2022 | Comm Center News
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…
by AllThingsECC.com | Jan 1, 2022 | Comm Center News
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…
by AllThingsECC.com | Jan 1, 2022 | Articles, Comm Center News
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.
READ FULL ARTICLE
by ECC Editor | Jan 1, 2022 | Comm Center News
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
