[Scan-DC] New Fire Stations in Howard County

[Cathy Drzyzgula]

The Gaitherburg Master Plan requires all development be reachable in 10
minutes, which is measured from when the call is received:

" (a) Fire and emergency response. 10 minute full response availability
shall be
provided for all proposed development. A full response time is defined as
the
time required for receiving, processing, and traveling to the site of an
emergency call from at least 2 stations."

It includes stations outside the city limits in looking for the 2 stations
with fastest service.  I assume it is measured under "normal" conditions,
not condition red or similar.

Cathy 


Doug said:

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.

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