Morgan County 911 updating backup center in courthouse in case of emergency
For the Enquirer
Morgan County 911 is installing updated equipment in a backup center in the basement of the Morgan County Courthouse in case there is ever a loss of service at the main center.
“Basically, we’re creating a redundancy that if something happened to this building we’d have someplace to go where we could take calls and still function,” said Morgan County 911 Director Jeanie Pharis.
The main Morgan County 911 center is located at 4216 U.S. 31 in Flint.
Jonathan Warner is the Morgan County Emergency Management Agency director and is on the Morgan County Emergency Management Communication District board. The EMA office is next to the backup center in the courthouse basement. Warner said there are several reasons a backup location is needed.
“A tornado could come through and take their facility out. They have a generator, but let’s just say the power went out and the generator didn’t kick on or the generator wasn’t functional,” he said. “Another thing that happens, too, more than people think, is contractors will be digging or something like that and hit lines. They can take communications out.” Pharis said the courthouse backup center has been there for many years.
“The only time we’ve used it in the past few years is when we did a renovation on the building up here,” she said. “We utilized the backup center for some of our dispatch-ers to function out of the backup while this operation building was being redone.” Pharis said the process of updating the backup center has begun.
“We have been changing out our equipment and our technology,” she said. “We’d like to be able to utilize that location for some of our backup equipment.” At Tuesday’s Morgan County Commission meeting, the commission approved a memorandum of understanding with the Morgan County Emergency Management Communication District to establish the backup 911 center.
“Our citizens have to have 911,” Warner said. “They have to be able to reach emergency responders.” Pharis said some equipment is already set up at the backup center.
“We have the computer system as far as our CAD (computer-aided dispatch) which is our dispatching software. We have the ability to record calls down there, and we do have the ability to take 911 calls,” she said. “We keep it set up and live essentially to where we could just switch it over there.” Pharis said there are 12 dispatchers at the main site, but there is only room for four dispatchers at the courthouse.
“There’s not really room to be able to expand it. Our room down there is limited,” she said. “It’s better than nothing, very much so.” The state’s 911 system has very advanced technology, Pharis said.
“We actually have the ability that we could go to any other 911 center and receive our 911 calls,” she said. “And since we have computers or laptops that are portable, we could set up someplace else, as long as we could get connectivity back to our main center in some way.” The two centers will not necessarily be used simultaneously, Pharis said.
“Is it possible? Yes,” she said. “Is it ideal? Not right now. We still have a lot more work we want to do to it.”
Pharis
