Technology streamlines, improves 911 response
To get a picture of just how far technology has come in the emergency services field, just look inside the lobby of Butler County’s communications center.
There you’ll find a contraption that looks a bit like an old player piano, but not nearly as wide and with dozens of holes and plugs.
It was the county’s old 911 switchboard, in service from December 1970 until February 1980. But it looks a lot older than that.
Today’s 911 communications technology hardly resembles that old switchboard, which would look right at home in Andy Griffith’s mythical Mayberry. You’d practically expect Sarah — Mayberry’s legendary phone operator — to be pulling and pushing wires in and out of the holes that dot the console.
Today, Sarah would be completely lost amid the communications equipment that fills the county 911 center, which is located in Butler Township.
The term “high tech” doesn’t begin to describe the gadgets that help the county’s telecommunicators get the ball rolling — and keep it rolling — when a 911 call lands.
The chairs alone cost thousands of dollars, and the consoles that make up each telecommunicator’s station cost much more. The same goes for equipment in the server-management room, a small closet-type setup with scores of green, yellow, blue and red wires crisscrossing stacks of shelved items that resemble rack stereo systems that were the rage in the 1980s but whose guts are most definitely 21st century.
The current 911 center has been in use since 2006; prior to that, the county’s 911 center sat in the basement of the Sunnyview Rehabilitation and Nursing Center.
Butler has a long history of involvement in the 911 field. In fact, the city was home to the state’s first 911 center — it was established just a year after Alabama state Sen. Rankin Fite completed the first 911 call over a GTE telephone line in Haleyville, Ala., in 1968. The county of Butler took over the operation from the city in 1970.
For the first 10 years or so, the county relied on the old Mayberry-style switchboard to answer 911 calls.
“That was how the technology was,” said Steve Bicehouse, the county’s director of emergency services for the past 12½ years. “You had wires that you pushed into holes.”
Bicehouse said in the early days of 911 service, there was no easy way to notify emergency responders. Many of the calls from the 911 center went directly to the homes of local police chiefs or fire chiefs, and they would then drive down to the station and take the appropriate action from there.
“That was the best technology,” Bicehouse said.
Things are very different today. Just a few steps from the old 911 console lies a room full of equipment that would make most people’s heads spin. The 911 center usually has six telecommunicators — an umbrella term that covers both the call-takers and the dispatchers — on duty during daylight hours and four during overnight hours.
The telecommunicators sit in front of a battery of eight video monitors that each carry out a different function. One is tied to a RapidSOS software program that allows the call-takers to see the location of people on the scene of a 911 call, based on phone location.
Bicehouse said the technology has improved to the point where the call-takers can pinpoint the caller’s location by a matter of feet.
“In the early days of 911, the calls came in on a circuit line,” he said. “For example, if a call came in from Butler city, that’s all the call-takers knew. Today, within milliseconds, the system knows exactly where you are. Obviously, there are mistakes in any technology. And that’s why we always ask you for the location of the emergency, to make sure that what’s coming on our screen matches what you’re saying.”
The system utilizes a triangulation approach, based on the location of cellphone towers, for cellphone calls. But Butler, like many areas, is moving into the next phase of 911 technology called Next Generation 911, which uses GIS — geographic information system — to pinpoint caller location and route calls appropriately.
In most cases, the call-takers who answer the 911 calls don’t actually dispatch the calls for service. Instead, while they’re on the phone talking with the callers, they are sending the vital information to those elsewhere in the room who are serving as dispatchers on any given day. In some cases, callers might get anxious and want the call-taker to simply dispatch an ambulance, but the call-takers must go through a computerized protocol that, based on the nature of the emergency, instructs them on what to say and what questions to ask.
Rob McLafferty, the county’s 911 coordinator and deputy director, said the computerized program covers just about every scenario you can imagine, from a seizure to heat or cold exposure to an overdose to someone giving birth.
Those questions determine the level of response that’s required. If an ambulance is required and dispatched, the ambulance will report back when it’s on the way, on the scene, en route to the hospital and then when it’s back in service and available for another call.
In addition to RapidSOS, the call-takers have a public safety radio console that allows them to communicate with all units in the field via their mobile or portable radios. “When an officer picks up the radio in their car, that’s the radio they’re talking to,” McLafferty said.
The call-takers also have a computer-aided dispatch setup — or CAD — whose information is displayed on four monitors in the center of the console. That tells the call-takers what units — fire, EMS, police — are available to send to the area and what units are currently deployed.
This is the first in a series of articles. For the second story in this series, see an upcoming edition of the Butler Eagle.
This article first appeared in the (month) edition of Butler County Business Matters.
