New facility, more personnel sought
By Beth Hahn
Albuquerque Journal (New Mexico)
Copyright 2006 Albuquerque Journal
There is no routine phone call to the red building on Salt Missions Trail Road in McIntosh.
Emergency dispatchers labor, two to a shift, in the cramped building where area residents phone in everything from fires and domestic violence incidents to suspected prowlers, car accidents and icy roads.
Torrance County emergency services director Shirley Whatley said the number of calls dispatchers answered in 2006 was three times what was logged the previous year.
Almost 130,000 phone calls were answered by Torrance County dispatchers in 2006 - and the year is not over yet, Whatley said Tuesday.
The county dispatch center, which serves Moriarty, Mountainair, Estancia and the rest of Torrance County as well as Bosque Farms, receives hundreds of phone calls a day - both emergency and nonemergency - because of its central location in New Mexico and because of U.S. 285 and Interstate 40, Whatley said.
It is not unusual for dispatchers to answer multiple calls about the same incident, especially when the weather turns foul, Whatley added.
“On a bad snow day, when someone sees a car slide off the road, dispatch can get five calls or more on the same incident,” she said.
Dispatchers also get nonemergency calls on 911 lines.
Two women from out of state phoned during last week’s traffic stall on I-40 to demand that the New Mexico State Police put them up in a hotel room, Whatley said.
During Tuesday’s interview, a resident west of Moriarty called to report that fireplace ashes she had set outside had started a grass fire.
While firetrucks and firefighters were sent to the scene, at least three other calls about the same fire came into the 911 center.
Whatley said multiple calls are typical for a day behind Torrance’s emergency consoles.
The drastic increase in calls for emergency services will give Whatley the ammunition needed to fight for a larger dispatch center, more personnel and better equipment.
Currently, Whatley is working to secure funds for generators to power radio repeaters at Capilla Peak and Clines Corners.
When storms roll into the Manzano Mountains or bustle through Clines Corners, Whatley said, it is not unusual for dispatchers to lose radio contact with EMTs, law enforcement officers or firefighters who are not in their vehicles.
“We don’t have any problems with the car repeaters,” she explained. “It’s the handheld radios, whenever someone ... gets out of their car and goes into a building. It’s scary.”
Two generators alone will cost Torrance County more than $80,000 to fix the problem, Whatley said, and she’s just getting started.
Whatley’s wish list also includes a $30,000 to $35,000 reverse 911 system - a computer program that can call blocks of phone numbers with information on road closures, evacuations or hazardous situations.
Another item on the wish list is a bigger dispatch building - one that can easily house the county’s consoles as well as the Emergency Management Office and a bank of computers currently set up in the county courthouse for larger emergency situations.
Whatley also hopes to raise dispatcher pay and construct a 20-year retirement plan for the behind-the-scenes workers.
And finally, the dispatch center could benefit from the implementation of Phase 3 of advanced 911 - that is, the ability to locate mobile phones that have made a 911 call.
A few weeks ago, Whatley said, a high school student with a cell phone made dozens of 911 calls over about three days that kept emergency personnel running all over the county.
The girl eventually was arrested and charged with several crimes including making false 911 calls, Whatley said, but it took dispatchers several days - and phone calls - to figure out who the girl was and where she was calling from.
One dispatcher, during a span of three days, answered 15 calls from the girl - who reported fake incidents ranging from fights and a fire at Moriarty’s Central New Mexico Electric Co-op building to car wrecks on I-40, or simply giggled before hanging up.
Law enforcement officers and dispatchers finally tracked the girl down to a classroom inside Moriarty High School, Whatley said.
The upgraded 911 system could have avoided days of guesswork on the calls, she said.
In about two weeks, when Bosque Farms transfers its 911 service from Torrance County to Valencia County’s new regional dispatch center, Whatley said it will lighten the dispatchers’ workload.
But with the continued prevalence of cell phone use and traffic on I-40 and U.S. 285, Whatley said she does not expect the number of emergency calls to drop below 130,000 anytime soon.
Armed with information and statistics, Whatley said she intends to work her way through the dispatch center’s needs.
Ideally, she said, that will culminate in a new building.
“Dispatch has kind of outgrown the current building,” she said. “If anything proves it, these (2006 calls for service) show how much more we’re being asked to take on.”