Fayette County 911 operators honors for dedicated service
The Fayette County commissioners recently recognized 911 operators’ outstanding efforts, presenting them with a certificate for National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.
“TCO Week” is a chance to “acknowledge, recognize and celebrate the men and women of Fayette County 911,” said county Emergency Management Agency office manager, open records officer and 911 records representative Sue Griffith.
Included in the myriad of calls 911 operators receive are those involving emergencies related to weather-related disasters. On March 3, heavy wind gusts led to widespread power outages across Fayette County. An outage in Uniontown caused a power disruption in the Fayette County 911 Center on West Main Street. A backup power generator kept the center’s dispatchers working, uninterrupted, as they processed nearly 900 calls over an eight-hour period.
EMA Director Roy Shipley said key EMA administrators and employees remained on site and dedicated to ensuring the call center was fully staffed throughout the weather event.
Their swift organization and calm demeanors throughout the weather event were the result of extensive professional training, said Griffith.
She said the best way for citizens to support emergency personnel is to “listen to the TCOs.”
“The questions they ask are not random. They are specific to the crisis and key to getting the proper response and best outcome, so answer the questions and don’t hang up until you are told it is OK to do so. Something may happen to change the situation, which may change the response, and the TCO needs to know this because our responders need to know this,” Griffith said. “People ask if the TCOs ever think about a call after it’s over – of course they do. They may feel angry, concerned, incredibly sad – but they regroup quickly because they don’t know what the next call will bring. One thing is certain – the next call will receive the same care, concern, skill and response warranted.”
New TCOs in the county undergo 272 classroom training hours, followed by 240-320 practical hours in the 911 center, with a mentor’s guidance, Griffith said.
“Within seconds of the call to 911 that an event is unfolding, we have the capability to locate the caller more specifically than we ever have. Life-saving information perfected by local medical professionals can be provided from childbirth to CPR, and these instructions work. We’ve seen it time and time again. Our TCOs monitor the scene, the situation and the first responders from marking enroute to clearing the scene,” Griffith said. “Unfortunately, some of our fire departments, police departments and EMS providers don’t have 24-hour staffing, so without someone to take the call and activate the responders, the situation would become far worse. Our TCOs are the key link in the chain of events in any emergency.”