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Gene Kennedy reporting The valley's 911 dispatch center shut down its computers for four and half hours this morning to upgrade the system, forcing dispatchers back to the days of pen and paper.
For four and half hours this morning, dispatchers at the Valley Emergency Communication Center were without computers.
It appears there were no major glitches as the computer upgrade was taking place from 4 to 830 this morning. VECC dispatched a house fire and a battalion chief at that fire told us he didn't notice any problems.
Batt. Chief Lowell Mikolash, Unified Fire Authority: "I haven't noticed much change in our dispatch protocol or in the way they have been dispatching." (reporter question: ‘ Despite pens and paper, they were on it this morning? ') Yes, they are doing their job. I didn't notice any difference. The right units responded, and we got here in a timely fashion.
VECC officials say the agency is overdue for a software upgrade. The new 911 program will allow a dispatcher to take the caller's information more quickly, now that dispatchers no longer have to deal with pop-up windows.
Carl Simpson VECC Executive Director: "While we're not receiving ad popups, we are receiving window popups that say ‘Is this what you mean', ‘Pick from the location below'. So there is a lot of, I wouldn't call it distracting, there is a lot of multitasking that needs to go on."
In the next two months, VECC is planning another computer upgrade. Officials say that will improve how firefighters are routed to a scene.
The 911 call center has been under fire in the media in the last couple of months, for everything from poor response time to dispatching crews to wrong locations.
VECC officials acknowledge that these computer upgrades, while planned, are at least in partial response to those media reports.
Now there has been debate whether the 911 center should get a new computer system all together. Still no answer on that.
VECC officials say at this point, the focus is on making the current system work as best as possible.
VECC has invested million of dollars in the system. But an independent consultant is evaluating that system and will have a progress report by mid February.
