WC Emergency Services Board: 911 Emergency Call Tips

Dennis Gabbert attended the Emergency Services Board meeting as a patron to discuss last weekend’s situation in which he called the Fire Department, who had trouble finding the fire at his pasture.
Gabbert said that he was burning brush that day when the fire got to the edge of a neighbor’s CRP land and got out of hand when it caught an old evergreen tree on fire. Gabbert told the board that he gave what he thought were explicit directions to the fire, only for fire crews to have trouble locating the fire.
Personnel from the 911 Call Center in Albany were on hand at the meeting; they explained that the best way for cell phone callers to get located was to stay on their cell phones until emergency service vehicles could locate them. This is because call center personnel can now ping peoples’ phones until they can get a positive location; this technology has advanced in the last few years. This is used now to locate missing persons as well. When Worth County first put in the 911 system, it was much more difficult for dispatchers to locate cell phone callers.
The location of the fire district was within Parnell’s district and there have been overlap issues over the years. But Sheridan Fire Chief Butch Thomas said that the Sheridan Fire Department was fine with handling such calls. The other issue that Gabbert had was that his cell phone locked up when he called 911 and he could not call his wife to flag down the fire trucks and direct them to the fire. That was an issue with the phone. Some Northwest Cell phones lock up during 911 calls to free up the line for the emergency.
Gabbert was on low ground when he placed his call; that creates another issue with cell phones. Sometimes, in that case, the service can be weak and you can hear only one word out of three. Sometimes, calls cannot go through at all. Both the dispatcher and Thomas tried to call Gabbert to get his location only to get no answer.
One of the main reasons dispatchers are reluctant to give out names is because of privacy laws; people can pick up names on the radio. On the other hand, current emergency protocol states that the first unit to arrive on the scene and then the local Fire Chief is in charge of an emergency situation, meaning that he can request the name of the person calling in the emergency. Thomas said that would not have done them any good in this situation since the fire was in his pasture and not at his home.
The 911 personnel will review the incident and see how they can improve their service. But most of the time, the system works fine; Board President David Hunt said that the Grant City Fire Department arrived in 10 minutes to a corn fire in his field last year. “If all we have is one concern raised per year, we’re doing pretty good,” said board member Dick VanVactor.
And one idea floating around in the legislature to consolidate a bunch of 911 call centers into regional call centers was universally declared a bad idea by everyone present. There are 147 call centers around the state and the rationale of some people in Jefferson City was that there were underserved areas. And some places, like Nodaway County, have three different 911 dispatch centers depending on the jurisdiction. But it was felt that the loss of personal service would outweigh any cost savings that could be achieved.
A new road reopened by Hunt’s place recently. Chris Spainhower requested that a formerly abandoned road be opened so that he could access landlocked pasture. It had been closed for 60 years and fenced off, but it had never been officially closed. The road has been ditched and graveled with CART gravel and will be put on the 911 map.
Tom Trullinger joined the board as a new member; he also serves as a deputy sheriff. There are 22 signs around the county that need to be fixed at a cost of around $440. The next meeting will be July 10th.

Great Northwest Days Sets Legislative Agenda

As legislators are gearing up for a new season in Jefferson City, so too are the citizens of Northwest Missouri. Over the past few months, the Great Northwest Day at the Capitol Steering Committee gathered and prioritized legislative issues for the region’s annual visit to the state capitol city on January 31-February 1, 2012.

At this event, approximately 350 people from the 18-county region will visit Jefferson City to make their regional voice heard in a single, cohesive message. Great Northwest Day’s legislative platform for the upcoming event includes the following priorities:

· Transportation and Infrastructure Funding: Maintain adequate funding to service and maintain our highways and lettered routes as well as support efforts to reconstruct levees in the areas affected by recent Missouri River flooding.

Consider tools to enhance the efforts of the Missouri Department of Transportation and continue support of county transportation efforts such as Bridge Replacement Off-System (BRO) and County Aid Road Trust (CART) programs. Additionally, support resolutions to encourage the Federal Government, United States Corps of Engineers to dedicate additional resources to rebuilding flood protection levees along the Missouri River.

· Statewide 9-1-1 Wireless Emergency Services: Design a complete, detailed, and integrated plan that includes a user fee on wireless devices for upgrading statewide 9-1-1 emergency services.

· Unfunded or underfunded mandates on local entities: Local governments and educational institutions are a mainstay of our society. As such we encourage State leadership to resist efforts to erode fiscal support of local city and county governments as well as our institutions of primary and higher education.

The criteria for reviewing regional issues included legislative impact, overarching regional impact, non-partisan perspective and timeliness of concern. Local issues were collected by County Coordinators and then compiled by a volunteer committee. Those issues were then regionally defined and sent back to County Coordinators and the steering committee for additional input before being established as Legislative Priorities for the event. The three priorities will be monitored as Great Northwest Day nears, and the message to legislators will be further refined during that time.

Great Northwest Day at the Capitol is an annual legislative event that includes introduction on the Missouri House and Senate floors, time with legislators, an educational luncheon, and an evening event inviting all of Missouri’s legislators and department heads to meet with citizens from the Northwest Missouri region.