Erath County and law enforcement entities are investing in the safety of its residents with the brand-new unified dispatch center set to officially go live at the beginning of September.
Along with the unified dispatch center which has been a renovation and expansion of the old tax office (at an estimated cost of $4.1 million), the county has worked to improve emergency communications with towers and radios.
The costs of the projects and salaries are being split between the county and the city of Stephenville, with entities such as Dublin and Tarleton paying an annual amount for dispatching services. The actual telecommunicators will be city of Stephenville employees.
The county’s radio upgrade cost including towers is approximately $7 million (paid for through federal COVID-19 funds) to benefit ECSO, EMS, emergency management, all volunteer fire departments in the county and the city of Dublin.
“Public Safety is strongest when agencies work together. Since joining with the Erath County Sheriff’s Office with a combined dispatch model in 2020 we’ve seen firsthand the benefits of shared resources, better communication, faster response times and cost savings to our community,” Dublin Police Chief Cameron Ray said. “The new unified dispatch center builds on that success by including all Erath County first responders with a central dispatch. This provides state of the art technology and a unified communication systems that will better serve our officers, firefighters, EMS partners and most importantly the citizens of Erath County. This project would not have been possible without the hard work of the city of Stephenville and Erath County. I give special thanks to Erath County Emergency Management Coordinator Chris Brooks, Stephenville Police Chief Dan Harris and Communications Manager Ashley Anderson for the hours and hours of dedication and hard work they have poured into this project with the needs of the citizens of Erath County at the forefront.”
When walking through the new building, citizens will be impressed with the sheer size and volume of the center anticipated to take the county through at least the next 30 years of growth, Brooks said.
Currently, dispatch is handled both through the Erath County Sheriff’s Office and Stephenville PD. Brooks gave a recent example of why unified dispatch is so important when it comes to the top priority of emergency management: time.
Recently, there was a major accident ultimately resulting in three air ambulance transfers on CR 351 and Hwy. 377.
Though technically in the city of Stephenville, county resources including fire were needed so Stephenville telecommunicators literally had to pick up the phone and call ECSO, adding time to an already critical incident.
With unified dispatch, all emergency dispatch is in one place saving valuable time.
When the new unified dispatch center goes online in September, each 12-hour-shift will have four telecommunicators, and a telecommunications supervisor. Preliminarily, there will be two telecommunicators to handle law enforcement calls, and two to handle fire and EMS calls. Telecommunicators will also answer 9-1-1 calls.
The center also offers several amenities for the telecommunicators including windows to see daylight, consoles, an outdoor secured eating area, a kitchen, a room with lockers to store work belongings and a quiet room in case a break is needed.
The consoles themselves not only raise and lower, but have heat, AC and fans, a place to charge cell phones or electronics and ambient lighting, along with additional lighting in case dispatchers need to read paperwork.
“It caters to the person sitting here, not a cookie cutter thing for everybody,” Brooks said, during a tour of the new center.
The dispatch room also has a color code lighting system to alert fellow dispatchers that they are on high priority calls, a 9-1-1 call or that they have temporarily stepped away for a break.
An asset that the expansion will also allow for surrounding counties is if for any reason, such as a tornado or catastrophic event occurs, Erath County Unified Dispatch is large enough that a dispatcher can relocate over temporarily since it is the same system for both Hood and Somervell County.
“We can run Somervell and Hood County out of this room in case of an emergency,” Brooks said.
The building also contains offices for emergency management, storage areas for those supplies and an emergency operations center which can be deployed in the case of major calls or disasters.
The EOC also will have a 6 by 10 screen which can feature a variety of feeds at once including maps, drones or other information as needed.
The entire building is also powered on an emergency backup generator.
“The new Erath County Unified Dispatch Center is in the final stages of completion of what will become a start of art 911/ dispatch and emergency operations center that will make the citizens, visitors, and first responders in Erath County safer,” Stephenville Police Chief Dan Harris added. “Our great SPD Telecommunicators, who will operate the center, will be able to immediately dispatch the closest first responders, when critical seconds count. All of our first responders will be working on the same regional radio network. I am very thankful for the great commitment of our local and county leaders and elected officials who have supported making the ECUDC possible.”