Columbiana Co. to launch new 911 system

By D.A. Wilkinson

The new enhanced system will show the location where a call was made, and information about the residents.

LISBON — Columbiana County has picked a date to start its new emergency telephone service: 9:11 a.m. Sept. 11, 2008.

“It’s a date that no American should forget,” said Gary Williams, a former county commissioner who is on the committee overseeing the project.

Williams said the start was selected as an appropriate response to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. in 2001. He said he and other committee members came up with the idea.

The new “enhanced” system will affect only land lines. It will show the location where a call was made and information about the residents.

Much of the county already has regular 911 service, in which calls are automatically routed to authorities.

Work has not begun to create a planned system to show where an emergency call was made on a cell phone. That will take place once the enhanced system is operating.

Robert Emmons, director of the 911 project, said, “With 50 percent of the calls, we don’t know where they are located.”

To complete the land line project, a number of problems have to be resolved.

Emmons said that MicroDATA, Inc. of St. Johnsbury, Vt., provided mapping software but its list of streets was “not acceptable.” Streets “were either mismatched, mislocated or not located at all,” he added.

Verizon is maintaining a list of phone numbers and locations. MicroDATA will still provide the mapping technology, but the county turned to NAVTEQ of Appleton, Wis., for road names and other information on a trial basis.

Emmons said NAVTEQ will cover portions of the municipalities that extend into other counties — which MicroDATA did not — and as far as five miles into other counties and even other states. That information would be helpful in case of an evacuation.

The committee also plans to install 60 fax machines at fire departments and for medical response teams at a cost of $11,310.

Under the plan, emergency fire or ambulance calls will go to one of five answering points: the county sheriff’s office and the Salem, Columbiana, East Palestine, and East Liverpool police departments. Those sites will fax the information to each department on lines that will be used only for that purpose.

The committee is still finding problems it must resolve.

Under the plan, each answering point that covers a specific area and specific agencies could evacuate and resume operations at second answering point. Rudy Sacchet of the Negley Fire Department, questioned whether the radios at the second point could communicate with the fire departments it serves. Local fire departments operate three different radio frequencies.

Columbiana Police Chief John Krawchyk said that the answering points normally only have one dispatcher on duty but two dispatching areas. He said that if a dispatcher moves to a second dispatching center, the dispatcher consoles should work independently and be soundproofed to aid communication.

wilkinson@vindy.com