9-1-1 In Washington Parish
Establishment of 9-1-1 In Washington Parish
Back in the old days before 9-1-1, when a citizen of Washington Parish needed help, they would pick up the phone and call the appropriate law enforcement agency on their normal business telephone line. The police dispatcher would answer the call and then make sure the caller got the help they needed. There were four ambulance operations in Bogalusa and one in Franklinton back in those days. In Bogalusa, there were ambulances owned by Osbourne Exxon, Champayne Exxon, Charlie Hayman Gulf, and Virgil and "PeeWee" Lloyd. The Bogalusa Police Department maintained a rotating log book and would call the "next up" ambulance, much as they do today. In Franklinton, Johnny Ray Fisher operated an ambulance service.
Then came the original 9-1-1 technology. The idea behind this system was that the citizen would make one three digit call, and that the person who answered that call would contact any emergency agencies that would be needed, such as law enforcement, the fire department or the ambulance company.
The Louisiana legislature, in an effort to establish 9-1-1 in Louisiana, granted Communication District Authority to the Parishes in 1983, under the provisions authorized by Louisiana Revised Statue 33:9101-9107.
Washington
Parish Police Jury enacted Statutes establishing Washington Parish Communications
District on May 17, 1988.
After their
establishment in 1988, the Communications District reviewed possible system
configurations permitted by Louisiana Revised Statues 33:9101-0107. These
possible system configurations included :
(1) "Direct dispatch method", that is a telephone service to a
centralized dispatch center providing for the dispatch of an appropriate
emergency service unit upon receipt of a telephone request for such services and
a decision as to the proper action to be taken.
(2) "Relay method", that is a telephone service whereby pertinent
information is noted by the recipient of a telephone request for emergency
services, and is relayed to appropriate public safety agencies or other
providers of emergency services for dispatch of an emergency service unit.
(3) "Transfer method", that is a telephone service that receives
telephone requests for emergency services and directly transfers such requests
to an appropriate public safety agency or other provider of emergency services.
(4) "Referral method", that is a telephone service that, upon the
receipt of a telephone request for emergency services, provides the requesting
party with the telephone number of the appropriate public safety agency or other
provider of emergency services.
The District in 1988 proposed that the parish law enforcement agencies adopt the direct dispatch method, that is, a telephone service to a centralized center providing for the dispatch of an appropriate emergency service unit upon receipt of a telephone request for such services and a decision as to the proper action to be taken. Each of the three law enforcement agencies in the parish, however, desired to continue answering the telephone calls for help. Thus, it was agreed by all agencies that the law enforcement would continue to answer the calls from citizens that lived in their area of responsibility and that the Communications District would ask the voters to approve a 9-1-1 fee that would be sufficient for to purchase, maintain, and upgrade the 9-1-1 equipment, as well as fulfill the District's administrative functions, but not enough to employ 9-1-1 call takers or pay the police dispatchers to answer 9-1-1 calls. By all agencies participating with the agreed upon responsibilities, 9-1-1 was implemented at minimum cost to the citizens.
Each
public safety
answering point would continue to be staffed by the respective agency’s dispatch personnel.
The original monthly fee for 9-1-1 services was $ 0.55 per Residential Phone and $ 1.43 per Business Phone and this fee has not been increased since the system started up in 1989. There were approximately 20,000 phone lines back then in Washington Parish. Current phone lines have decreased to approximately 17,000. All funds in excess of operating expenses were to be placed in savings to allow for equipment replacement and upgrades as they are needed.
In 1989, following the initial funding approval by the citizens of Washington Parish, the Communications District developed and implemented a uniform addressing system for the areas outside of the municipal boundaries of Bogalusa and Franklinton. This five digit address system improved the ability of the emergency responding agencies to locate the address of the emergency. This system is still in use today by most, but not all, of non-municipal residents of the parish.
Following the re-addressing of parish roads, the Communications District acquired and installed 9-1-1 equipment at the parish's three primary public safety answering points (Washington Parish Sheriff's Office, Franklinton Police Department, Bogalusa Police Department) and one secondary answering point (Bogalusa Fire Department).
This original basic
9-1-1 equipment provided the police dispatcher with the caller's phone number.
The only thing different from before was that there was now a phone at the police department
dedicated for emergencies with a little screen to show the caller’s telephone
number. 
The police dispatcher
answered the call and did the same things they were doing before, except now
they knew the caller’s telephone number.
This was similar to the caller ID that you can now get for your home phone.
Then came Enhanced 9-1-1. The little screen was a little bigger and showed the caller’s telephone number plus the caller’s address. The police dispatcher answered the call and did the same things they were doing before, except now they knew the caller’s telephone number and address and the phone had mechanical buttons to transfer the call to other agencies like the fire department or the ambulance service.
Then came the present system in 2004. The little screens are now even bigger, and there is an electronic map to show the caller’s location. Same call for help as before, but now there is more information for the police dispatcher to utilize, and more telephone call handling capabilities, like the ability to type messages to hearing impaired callers. Now the dispatcher has more “tools” to use to do a better job than they could do before 1989.
You may ask, "What happens when all this modern 9-1-1 equipment is hit by lightning, for example, and quits working ?" Don't worry, in a situation, when the computers quit working, the call for help will be routed back to the normal business telephone. The police dispatcher is still going to get that call for help.
Modernization of 9-1-1 In Washington Parish
In 2002, the Communications District developed a vision of the future which included a consolidation of all of the parish's emergency communications functions, using updated equipment, into a single terrorist resistant, hurricane proof facility to be located near the geographical center of the parish. This consolidation plan was based on recommendations by GeoComm, a nationally known emergency communications consulting company. The plan included recommendations to add personnel specifically trained to answer 9-1-1 calls and to dispatch ambulance and fire service resources, in order to reduce the work load of the law enforcement dispatchers.
Using the consultant's
study as a guide, the Communications District presented its plan to improve
emergency communications to the voters of Washington Parish for their approval
in October of 2003. This approval, if granted, would have provided
additional funding to build and operate a modern emergency communications center
for Washington Parish (see photograph to the right). All police dispatchers were to have been
moved to the new location and 9-1-1 would have employed additional persons
dedicated to answer 9-1-1 calls. Additional funding was not approved at that time.
Therefore, the law enforcement dispatchers would be required to answer 911 calls
as they previously had been doing.
The non-approval of additional funding prevented the immediate equipment upgrades that were needed and rather than having sufficient funding to add 9-1-1 call takers, the police dispatchers would have to continue to answer the 9-1-1 calls as they had always done since the beginning. All funds in excess of those needed to operate Communications District would continue to be placed in savings in order to afford future facilities and equipment improvements.
In mid 2004, the Communications District, knowing that the parish's 9-1-1 system needed replacement, aggressively committed a majority of its savings for a "ground up" rebuilding of the parish's 911 system in the existing multiple agency locations. While advanced for its day, the original 9-1-1 equipment had become obsolete. This equipment replacement did not, however, secure the benefits of a modern emergency communications center, and because it encompassed three locations rather than one centralized location, was expensive to implement. It was, however, imperative that the replacement be accomplished to maintain the current level of service and to provide a foundation for further improvements as funds become available.
This equipment replacement gives the various agency dispatchers modern, capability to (a) answer incoming 9-1-1 calls, (b) transfer 9-1-1 calls to other agencies, (c) automatically detect and answer TDD calls from the hearing impaired, and (d) instant recall recording of 9-1-1 calls. Equipment is being provided to Washington Parish by PlantCML and Higher Ground, Inc. Equipment installation and maintenance services are being furnished by Gage Telephone Systems, Inc. of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The
Washington Parish Communications District completed the replacement of all its
original 9-1-1 equipment on July 16, 2004. The entire
parish was linked together with a single integrated 911 telephone system. If any one dispatcher
is overloaded with calls to the point of not being able to answer, their next
incoming 9-1-1 call will be automatically redirected to a backup
agency. This "call forwarding" does not occur until after
30 seconds of wait time, so give the dispatcher time to answer your call.
They may be tied up on other calls.
In addition, all dispatchers can talk to one another via the 9-1-1 system, even if the commercial telephone system is unavailable due to catastrophic system overload such as the one that occurred in October of 1995.
The ability of this new equipment to automatically detect and answer TDD calls from the hearing impaired is especially timely, given recent actions by the Federal government to enforce minimum standards of service for hearing impaired citizens. An improvement program such as that recently completed by Plaquemines Parish is currently being implemented in Washington Parish.
In addition to the
basic equipment replacement program, the Communications District implemented a
Phase I and II wireless phone location and digital map system
.
Start up was in October, 2004, and cell tower
testing was completed on the existing cell towers during the summer of 2005. This system
allows the
dispatcher to know the location of the person using a cellular phone to call for
help. Verizon, Nextel, Cingular, Centennial and Sprint towers have been tested and approved
for Phase II operation. In the first quarter of 2006, the system was further upgraded to provide
location data for land based telephone calls. Aerial photography which had
already been integrated into the system to provide additional information for the
dispatcher was also updated in early 2006. Washington Parish was the fourth
parish in the state of Louisiana to successfully implement such as system.
This equipment, as well as its maintenance and upkeep is being funded by a monthly fee of $ 0.85 on all post-paid wireless telephones in the parish which began in 2000. A 2 per cent fee on pre-paid wireless cards will take effect on January 1, 2010. All of these funds in excess of those needed to operate the wireless location systems are being placed in savings in order to afford future facilities and equipment improvements.
Just a few weeks after system startup of the
GeoLynx
Phase II mapping system in 2004, the Washington Parish Sheriff's Office was able to
locate a citizen in need of medical attention who called 9-1-1 on his cell phone
but was unable to give his address due to his medical condition.
This mapping software was partially funded by a grant from the Public Safety Foundation of America. Washington Parish received this grant in July, 2003, and was the only Louisiana 9-1-1 system to receive such funding approval at that time.
Already planning for the next step, the Washington Parish Communications District and the Washington Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness have joined together in a joint effort to provide an integrated CAD system for law enforcement agencies in the Parish. This system will allow real time data sharing between all agencies, and will build the foundation for latter mobile data terminal implementation in emergency response vehicles. In addition, it will allow information pooling for incident command purposes in the Parish's Emergency Operations Center. Since Homeland Security funding following Katrina has been dedicated to the purchase and installation of 700 mhz radios for emergency responders in Washington Parish, this CAD system project has been slowed. The District did, however, assist the Washington Parish Sheriff's Office in acquiring CAD system upgrades in early 2006.
While Washington Parish has gotten off to a good start in improving the 9-1-1 system, much remains to be done. The lessons learned during hurricane Katrina further emphasize the need for additional improvements. Subsequent to the hurricane, an Appropriations Request was made to the United States Congress. This request was combined with the needs of 18 other parishes and made a part of Senate Bill S.1765. Approval of this Bill has not yet occurred.
Emergency
response, humanitarian relief, and related governmental activities in Washington
Parish during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina have been severely hampered by
the lack of a modern Emergency Operations / 9-1-1 / Multi Agency Communications
Center.
The statement, often heard, “Without effective communications, all else
fails”, has been proven correct.
This
facility will provide an effective means for local emergency response and
government officials to coordinate, monitor, and direct emergency response and
related activities during an emergency.
In
order to provide emergency communication services in the event of natural or man
made disasters, terrorism, bio-terrorism, hazardous materials, and other
emergencies within Washington Parish and those which affect the greater New
Orleans area,
Louisiana Emergency Response Region 9 - Office of Public Health Region 9, and
adjacent Mississippi counties; an
Appropriations
Request has been made to state and federal sources to construct and equip a new,
centrally located facility.
It will provide coordinated electronic, telephone, satellite and radio
communications to, from, and between all law enforcement, fire, emergency
medical services, hospitals, and emergency management agencies within Washington
Parish and the surrounding parishes and counties.
The
proposed site is remotely
located, thus providing a secure location for command and control support of
regional emergencies, while being away from heavily traveled interstate highways
and metropolitan population centers. The
proposed facility would become the primary Emergency Operations Center for
Washington Parish and will have the capability of supporting multiple parishes,
if needed. The present Washington
Parish primary operations center on Bill Booty Road will become the alternate
site.
All incoming 9-1-1 calls from the parish will be answered at this facility. The facility will be available for planning and training functions for all agencies and volunteer groups including ARES, RACES, and the Citizen Corps.
Additional dispatcher equipment which is normally found in a modern dispatch facility was not part of the 2004 - 2005 improvement program due to funding unavailability. Such important features as (a) AVL - Automatic Vehicle Location to determine the nearest available emergency unit, (b) Radio system integration to improve communications between law enforcement agencies, (c) Pre - arrival emergency medical information given by local dispatchers prior to the arrival of an ambulance, (d) Panic button alarms for the elderly, (e) Incident command system integration with the Washington Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness - OEP, and (f) the construction and staffing of a modern 9-1-1 call taking center, will have to wait for future funding. Approximately $ 7.8 million of one time additional spending will be required to implement these improvements. This cost will be funded by additional savings, grants, appropriations, and loans over the next five to ten years or so. Yearly additional costs of approximately $ 500,000 to operate the emergency center can only be acquired from additional 9-1-1 fees.
When you look at these improvements that are having to wait for future funding, they fall into two categories. They are either infrastructure related items such as equipment, computers, and buildings, or they are people related items such as staffing levels. Improvements of infrastructure items will improve the quality and availability of information necessary to get the correct assets to the right place in a timely and well coordinated manner.
Improvements in staffing will improve the ability of 9-1-1 operators to respond to calls for help. No matter how well intended, the one dispatcher currently on duty at each law enforcement agency can not effectively handle both their law enforcement responsibilities and their 9-1-1 duties. No matter how modern the equipment, one dispatcher per PSAP answering 9-1-1 calls is not enough.
The new equipment has given the dispatcher the tools to perform their call answering duties about as well as can be done on the first 911 call that is received during a given period of time. Being that there is only one dispatcher on duty at any one time, multiple calls will over load the single dispatcher, and cause subsequent calls to be routed to a call taker at a back up agency after 30 seconds of ring time has been exceeded.
Improvements in staffing are mandatory to achieve a higher level of emergency response. Neither the law enforcement agencies or the Communications District are sufficiently funded at this time to add 9-1-1 call answering personnel. Without additional personnel, calls will roll over to a call taker at a back up agency.
The recent development of telephones connected to a user's Internet computer will bring with it additional challenges for the Parish's dispatchers. Calls for help from these types of telephones may not give the dispatcher the caller's name, address, and call back telephone number. Such telephones utilize what is known as VoIP technology. The Federal Communications Commission on May, 19, 2005, took steps to protect consumers by requiring that certain providers of voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) phone service supply enhanced 911 (E911) emergency calling capabilities to their customers as a mandatory feature of the service.
Another issue involves E-9-1-1 funding-- VoIP users can arrange for E-9-1-1 service with their Internet provider, and yet not pay any applicable 9-1-1 surcharges for the service. There is anxiety among public safety agencies, parish and state-level 9-1-1 agencies that E-9-1-1 system funding could be reduced as more persons convert to VoIP telephone service, and drop their wired telephone service.
Another topic of interest is the dispatch of the closest responder to the scene of an emergency incident. While AVL - Automatic Vehicle Location for emergency vehicles is not within the scope of the present project, it should be noted that the foundation required for an AVL system - an accurate GIS based map, has been completed. This accurate GIS based map is included in the present project. Once this accurate GIS map is in place, AVL will become deployable, given sufficient equipment funding and participation agreements by interested response agencies.
These
future enhancements, when implemented, would give Washington Parish emergency
response agencies additional tools needed to assist
emergency personnel in getting to the right place, with the right assets, in a
timely manner.