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Columbiana County upgrading 911 service
The system will be able to fax a map to a fire station or police car.
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EMERGENCY DISPATCHING: Chrystal Sicklesmith handles an emergency call at the Columbiana County 911 center in Lisbon. The 911 system is undergoing an upgrade.
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COLUMBIANA UPGRADES: Jennifer Swords, a Columbiana County 911 dispatcher, handles a call. The county is upgrading its 911 emergency telephone service so that it can handle calls made from cellular phones.
LISBON — Wireless 911 phone service should be complete early next year, according to Robert Emmons, the director of the Columbiana County 911 program.
The system, when completed, should be able to direct safety forces close to locations where help is needed.
“We’re trying to complete the cell-phone service as quickly as we can without cutting any corners,” Emmons said.
Dan Bing is the county commissioner who oversees the Columbiana County 911 Emergency Services Commission that will supervise the addition of wireless calls.
He said, “We want to make sure that everything is supposed to work the way it should. We don’t want to put the pieces together and not have it work.”
The county previously approved 911 service for land lines, which was completed in 2008.
Verizon Business Solutions had hired a company to oversee basic mapping for the system. However, there were problems with the map. Emmons eventually hired Digital Data Technologies Inc. of Columbus to do the work.
Under the basic system now in use, information, such as the address of a house, is entered into a computer.
If a distress call comes from that house, a 911 dispatcher can alert the appropriate police or fire department. The system can even fax a map to a fire station or even to a cruiser.
The mapping for cellular calls is more precise, but it can guide safety forces only close to a person in need, Emmons said.
Special vehicles will be used to pinpoint locations in the entire county. A distress call will go to various towers in the county to point to the location of the call.
Emmons expects the cost of that system will be $360,000, although he said he should be able to get a state grant to cut that cost in half.
Because of the delays, Verizon will give a the 911 program a credit of $105,533 and reduce the maintenance contract by $83,789.
wilkinson@vindy.com