Audio clip
Fran Hamilton
The numbers 911 can be a lifesaver.
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Staff Photo by John Rawlston Dispatchers Shirley Brown, foreground, and Tracy Paris work at the Walker County 911 center in between Chickamauga and Rock Spring on Wednesday. Chattooga County has recently begun charging cell and land-line phone users a monthly fee to help recover costs of 911 operations as Walker County and many other local governments do.
“In a rural area like ours, the 911 Center is truly your lifeline,” Chattooga County Sole Commissioner Jason Winters said.
Nationwide, dialing 911 links those in desperate need with those trained to help.
“911 dispatchers are the true first-responders,” said Alex Case, Dade County’s director of 911/emergency management services. “It is a huge asset for public safety.”
Whenever a call is received at a 911 center, the phone number is displayed as well as a map that shows where the call is originating. Calls from home phones display a location that is constant.
For calls from cell phones, 911 centers are installing software programs to pinpoint where the call originates and track the caller, even if the signal is moving.
Providing this essential service is not inexpensive, but “People get their money’s worth and more,” said Jeffrey Putnam, director of emergency services for Whitfield County.
No 911 center is self-sufficient, and surcharges added to telephone bills help defray costs and allow technology updates that makes 911 possible, officials say.
ELEMENTS:
Calls to area 911 Centers during 2008:
Dade County, population about 16,000, had about 27,000 emergency calls.
Catoosa County, population about 49,000, handled about 100,000 calls — emergency and nonemergency.
Whitfield County, population about 94,000, handled 63,471 emergency 911 and 103,834 additional calls.
“We budgeted $615,000 for 911 service for 2009,” according to Dade County Clerk and Finance Officer Don Townsend. “About half, $305,000, is expected to be collected from landline, wireless and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) surcharges.”
Walker County Commissioner Bebe Heiskell said surcharges help offset costs, with the county paying any shortages.
“The surcharge lets everyone, not just property owners, shoulder the burden,” she said. “And without it (911), every department (fire, city and county law enforcement, emergency medical services) would be required to have their own dispatchers.”
Joyce Williams, 911 administrator for Catoosa County, said the equipment used 25 years ago was “two cans and a string” compared to today’s technology.
“Last year, we had more than 100,000 calls come through our 911 center,” she said. “If anything is going on, we like to be the first to hear about it.”
Chattooga County only recently adopted a resolution that charges the state-allowed maximum of $1.50 per line to the county’s estimated 13,000 cell phone service customers.
“We had 13,000 landline users in 2001, today we have 8,000,” Mr. Winters said.
That decrease translated into a drop in revenue, but there now are probably more than 13,000 cell phones users in the county, he said.
Fran Hamilton, interim director of Chattooga County E911, said the number of calls to 911 has remained fairly constant.
“Domestic situations are an all-the-time thing,” Ms. Hamilton said. “We’ve had potential suicides that have been defused and, in one case, a dispatcher talked a woman safely out of a burning house.”
The county’s 911 service is a constant in times of emergency, and one worth paying for, Mr. Winters said.
“Most people realize that $18 a year for something like this is cheap insurance,” he said.
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