Communications is a division of Support Services. The communications staff will be your first emergency contact when calling for a police, fire, or medical emergency. It is the nerve center for all emergency activity.

When calls for service are received by the communications staff they are entered into the Computer Aided Dispatch system and police and/or fire personnel and apparatus are dispatched according to the type of call. All calls for service are dispatched according to the guidelines in our departmental written directives, policies and procedures.

There are some basic questions that a communications dispatcher or call taker may ask a citizen in reference to their call for help. They are:

1) where is the emergency?
2) what is the emergency ?
3) who is involved?
4) how this is happening?
5) are there weapons?
6) has anyone been drinking?
7) descriptions?
8) direction of travel?
9) would the caller like contact or no contact?

If you are calling with a medical emergency, once the type of emergency is determined and your exact location is determined, the dispatcher will start Emergency Medical Services your way.  But you will be kept on the phone by the dispatcher to provide pre-arrival information and possible first-aid instructions.

Cell Phones:  With the enhanced software in the Communications Center, along with the technology that now exist in Cell Phones, the dispatcher can get a general location from where you are calling but not an exact location.  Some service providers may be able to provide a closer location than others.  If you eleminated your Land Line phone from your home and only use a Cell Phone and call 911 from your house, you must give the exact information of your location.

Have you ever called 911 from a Cell Phone while on a major highway to report an accident and got placed on hold or it took a long time to answer?  The reason for this is that there are 30 to 50 other drivers calling 911 at the same time to report the same accident.  So most likely, one Call Taker is taking the emergency information on the accident and the other Call Takers are trying to answer the other lines as fast as possible.

 

CALL VOLUME REPORT FOR FISCAL YEAR

       OCTOBER 2005 TO SEPTEMBER 2006

911:
  155,156

NON-EMERGENCY CALLS:
  164,053

TOTAL CALLS:
   319,209