By Melinda J. Overstreet
Glasgow Daily Times, Ky.
GLASGOW, Ky. — Emergency personnel in Barren County are again using 10-codes instead of plain language in everyday radio communications.
After the Glasgow Management Control Board, which oversees dispatch center operational rules, discussed the issue earlier this month, a committee reviewed local use of the codes and produced a list that could be consistent across agencies. Also since the initial management control board meeting, the Barren County Fire Chiefs Association met to discuss the issue.
At a special-called meeting Friday of the management control board, the committee’s list showing the 10-codes and their plain-language meanings was adopted unanimously.
The Glasgow and Cave City police departments and the Barren County Sheriff’s Office prefer to use 10-codes, because they are easier and save time, according to remarks from each department’s leaders at the previous meeting. Radio traffic often had 10-codes interspersed with plain language.
A switch to normal language stemmed from difficulties identified in the response to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when some responders had trouble communicating across agencies.
“It is required that plain language be used for multi-agency, multi-jurisdiction and multi-discipline events, such as major disasters,” according to a December 2006 alert from the National Incident Management System Integration Center, which is a part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
While plain language is not required by the FEMA for day-to-day internal operations, the NIMS Integration Center “strongly encourages it,” because it’s important to practice the everyday terminology for when an emergency incident or disaster occurs.
Starting in 2006, federal preparedness grant funding has been contingent on the use of plain language in “incidents requiring assistance from other agencies,” according to that alert.
Temple Hill Volunteer Fire Department Chief Tony Richey, who is also the president of the county chiefs association and former director of Glasgow-Barren County Emergency Management, had expressed concerns about returning to 10-codes at the previous meeting because of a potential funding loss and because when a disaster occurs, agencies will have to suddenly switch how they communicate.
On Friday, Richey said the volunteer fire chiefs “absolutely, adamantly don’t want to go back. They want to keep plain language. … Most everything we do now, we’re knocking out three departments.”
The composition of the board – three representatives from the Glasgow Police Department and one each from the fire department, emergency medical services and dispatch – is generally dictated by state law, and the city of Glasgow provides much of the funding, particularly for staffing and space. Even though other agencies have been invited to the board meetings to be part of discussions since James Duff became interim GPD chief this year, only the actual members have a vote.
After slightly more discussion, GPD Capt. Tony Morgan made the motion and GPD Maj. Eddie Lindsey seconded it, to adopt the list the committee compiled and begin using 10-codes for day-to-day normal situations. Duff emphasized that in the event of a disaster, when other agencies are responding, plain language is to be used. The vote was unanimous, with Mike Swift, director of Barren-Metcalfe County EMS, being the only voting member absent. He had been a member of the committee, however, and had not expressed any opposition to the change.
Beverly Harbison, director of the Barren-Metcalfe County Emergency Communications Center, said dispatchers have been using 10-codes when entering information into the computer system, anyway.
The change was effective immediately, but Harbison said that at least for now, if a dispatcher uses a 10-code to communicate with a responder and the responder replies in plain language, she’ll be OK with it.
Law enforcement agencies tend to have greater use for 10-codes than fire departments do, Harbison said. There are no codes for fires, for example, so normal language still comes into play in certain situations, regardless.
©2015 the Glasgow Daily Times (Glasgow, Ky.)