[Scan-DC] New Fire Stations in Howard County

[Doug Kitchener]

I wonder how long it was/is taking in Howard between the time a phone call came in to the call center and the time the call was/is dispatched.

In Montgomery it's a _long_ time... when you dial 911 and need the fire department or an ambuance, first hey have to switch you over to the fire side - then the calltaker asks a whole bunch of questions; the answers are used to determine the type and severity of the call, then they have to do something (dunno what) with the CAD, and eventually the call goes out.  I bet it's closer to five  over 2-1/2 minutes... and that's under normal conditions, _not_ during a thunderstorm or something like that when they get a high call volume, and not during a large incident like a train wreck when they're getting multiple calls on the same incident.

(By the way, I've recently noticed that Montgomery County Police are sending cars out on 911-disconnects, even after they make contact and are told it was a misdial or something like that... and there are at least three phones in the Gaithersburg district that have automatic dialers that call them several times a day, but nothing is being done about tracking down the phones and fixing the problem.  And there's a 7-11 in the Montgomery Village shopping center that has a Watkins Mill Road address, but it's consistently dispatched as being on Montgomery Village Avenue and is that way in their database.  Aaahh, if the general public ever knew about some of the madness we scanner hobbyists hear, there sure would be a lot of yelling...)

DK

----------------------------------------
> From: dswfd2119 at comcast.net
> To: oldsdoug at hotmail.com; scan-dc at mailman.qth.net
> Subject: RE: [Scan-DC] New Fire Stations in Howard County
> Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:43:38 -0400
>

EDITED FOR BREVITY - DK


> NEWS RELEASE
>

> Howard County Releases Details of New System to Improve Critical Emergency
> Response Times
>

> The changes are being made in response to initial results of the Department
> of Fire & Rescue Services' self-assessment. These initial findings indicated
> that response times could be improved and identified challenges that
> included the 9-1-1 dispatch process, 
>


> To address the concerns identified through the self-assessment, the County's
> Police Department, which oversees 9-1-1 Communications Center, worked with
> the Department of Fire & Rescue to pilot a new dispatch process which
> changes the way information is collected from the caller and gets responders
> on the road in less time.
>
> "In the first 45 days since this system has been implemented, the time it
> takes to dispatch a call has been reduced by approximately one minute," said
> Police Chief William McMahon. "When you are dealing with life threatening
> emergencies, every second counts."

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