New E-911 center goes live this week

LUMPKIN COUNTY, GA — It might not be apparent through the phone line, but when Lumpkin County’s new E-911 goes into effect tomorrow morning it will be the culmination of a $450,000 overhaul that has replaced everything from the overhead monitors to the office chairs.

“Everything in here’s brand new,” said 911 director Jeff Cantrell as he stood in the middle of the newly renovated room beneath the downtown fire station. “We’re not bringing anything from the old center in here.”

Shelia Pace is especially appreciative that her old captain’s chair won’t survive the changeover.

“This was her thirteenth year here,” Cantrell said. “The chair she was sitting in on January 1st this year was the chair she started in. It was just your basic office chair, low back, had no support.”

Now the staff of 11 has been bestowed with special ergonomic seats designed to make their 12 hour shifts much more tolerable.

“It was amazing,” said Pace with a laugh as she described her first shift in her chair.

That was just the beginning.

While the old center, which is located on the opposite end of the facility, is full of cutting edge technology for the early 1990s, the new facility is full of cutting edge technology for today.

“This is top of the line,” said Cantrell. “There’s not many counties around that I know that have this.”

Starting tomorrow, when a caller phones into the center, a panel of six flat screen monitors will display an array of information listing everything from identification information to the location of the nearest live-saving unit.

“We’ll be able to see every patrol car in the county,” said Cantrell. “They’ll have GPS units in there.”

The renovation also includes new computers and software which, Cantrell said, can free up valuable seconds that might be eaten up by the older, clunkier system.

“You look at it. Is 10 seconds that big a deal?” he said. “Yeah it is a big deal. You could have a fire truck there a minute faster than it normally would have.”

In keeping with the new surroundings, the staff has received an upgrade in their abilities as well.

Prior to this year when a operator received an emergency medical call, all he or she could do was relay it to the proper authorities and attempt to keep the caller calm.

Now, after undergoing approximately 60 hours of training, each dispatcher is certified to give detailed medical instructions for anything from post-heart attack care to infant CPR.

“And you used to just have to say we’ve got somebody on the way,” said Cantrell.

This renovation has been funded by a mixture of Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax funds as well as a special cell phone surcharge.

“If you look at your cell phone bill you’ll see a $1.50 cell phone charge,” he said. “The money comes to the 911 center and it can only be spent for 911.”

Each funding source will account for about $200,000, though the figures aren’t final, said Lumpkin County Finance Director Allison Martin.

Cantrell has overseen every detail of this transformation which started at the beginning of the year.

It was then that the 14-year law enforcement veteran was appointed to the position by Sheriff Stacy Jarrard after longtime Emergency Management Director Don Seabolt stepped down.

“With the knowledge he’s had in the past we just seemed like a good person to do it,” Jarrard said.

Anyone who is interested in taking a look at the new 911 center can stop by for an open house Wednesday, Nov. 30 from 3 to 6 p.m.

Cantrell said it will give the public a chance to see the people behind the voices on the other end of the line.

“Everybody else comes out to the scene and those are the faces everybody sees,” he said. “They’re the faces you don’t see. Most people don’t know who they’re talking to.”

Read the story here.

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