The new White County 911 Communications Center is a far cry from the cramped quarters the center inhabited for 11 years on North Spruce Street in downtown Searcy near the court square.
The former headquarters was about 900 square feet and housed dispatchers and equipment with all practically on top of each other, said Amy Barnette, administrative assistant to director Nancy Van Winkle, on a recent tour of the new facility at 731 Taylor Road in Searcy.
The new location, at a renovated trucking company’s business site, has staff settling in after the move into the facility about two weeks ago.
Equipment was moved in one day, from 4 a.m to 8 p.m., with some staff manning a mobile 911 unit to ensure that there was no break in 911 coverage.
“Our goal was to get the 911 center up, and they did,” she said. “It was a long, long day, but it was up and properly functioning within that time frame. The mobile unit served its purpose well.”
There are nine stations in the center’s new setup. Two dispatchers man eight-hour shifts, with the intention of maybe adding a third person in the future, Barnette said.
The workstations are adjustable to either standing or sitting positions, and each station has its own heating, cooling and lighting that can be adjusted.
With more than 53,000 calls coming in last year, the new facility and its up-to-date accommodations will be a boon to the city, she said.
The facility and its upgrade were funded by White County, which first allocated $1.65 million in 2014 for the purchase of 8.5 acres, the former J-Mar Express Inc. property. Barry Hoffman of the Hoffman Architectural Firm of Searcy designed the plan for renovation of the property. The construction cost was $693,013, and the engineering fee was $52,875, all provided from the White County general budget.
Barnette said members of the 911 staff are appreciative of County Judge Michael Lincoln, the Buildings and Grounds Committee of the Quorum Court and the justices of the Quorum Court for providing the improved facility.
White County is the second-largest county in the state in land mass, and the largest in the state in the number of roads, Barnette said.
“We do 911 addresses for the county,” she said. “When someone moves in, they come here to get an address and, for $7, receive the locating sign to put up. We do mapping here as well.”
Judge Lincoln commented on the new center: “I think it is a great addition for the citizens of White County and will serve White County for years to come.”
The renovated dispatch area is 1,230 square feet, Lincoln said. There is also a small kitchen area with the basics of a refrigerator, microwave and coffeemaker, as well as an area upstairs to house staff members in the event of an emergency.
“The judge provided for us a restoration center with three cots and showers,” Barnette said.
Previously, if emergencies that lasted overnight or for several days kept staff at work, they would “sleep at their desks” in shifts, she said. Now they can be provided a bed and a shower when needed.
“During a recent year’s ice storm, Nancy [Van Winkle] and I were here, and we might all get trapped at the previous location with just bare needs met,” Barnette said. “And oftentimes, if deputies could not get free to take staff home when it was too severe to try it on their own, they had been stranded in the much smaller office with no amenities.”
On April 27, 2014, when a tornado came through White County, there were 13 people in the smaller center, and 6,000 calls to field came in within an hour, Barnette said.
Staff members rotated the responsibilities of taking phone calls and routing traffic so no one would get completely worn out with one responsibility, she said.
The staff receives training every three months, and the new center includes a conference room for training sessions. In-house staff may providing the training, or it may be conducted by outside personnel from specialized areas, such as the Union Pacific Railroad for railroad emergencies; Southwestern Energy for pipeline issues; or airport personnel, in the event of a plane crash, Barnette said.
When a staff member is hired for the 911 Center, there is training at the Arkansas Law Enforcement Training Academy at satellite sites, with attendees able to train close to their home area, Barnette said. The three-day eight-hours-per-day training is followed by testing, then certification. And even then, they are “shadowed” for three months after certification, she said. “We shadow that entire time.”
At each of the workstations, dispatchers view terminals showing the 911 system, the map or area of coverage and an ACIC (Arkansas Crime Information Center) site.
Dispatchers are “‘walled in” with no windows. “It gets to you sometimes,” Barnette said, referring to the claustrophobic atmosphere, “but it has to be secure.” Thus, the staff appreciates the glassed-in area at the entrance to the new facility that is also visible from the conference room area.
“We get sunlight — very nice, to see beyond the walls,” she said.
Getting all straightened up and settled in the new place is well on its way, Barnette said.
“Making sure all vendors were in sync with the move also was a challenge,” she said. “There are 10 vendors who supply support equipment to run the 911 Center. All of them had to be in sync with the move when it occurred.
“The judge wanted to make sure we had adequate room to serve police, fire and first responders within their responsibility.”
The White County Sheriff’s Office, eight police departments, 21 fire departments and 20 first-responder’s units are served by the call center, she said. All of the smaller cities in White County are in its area of service, with the three larger cities — Searcy, Bald Knob and Beebe — each providing its own service.
It took six to eight months to renovate the trucking-company building, but about eight years to get the project going and finalized.
A new 192-foot-tall radio tower had to be built to expand the center’s ability to receive calls from areas that had been unreachable because of the location and height of the previous tower.
The new facility’s equipment room is built in tornado-proof quarters like a safe room, as is the dispatch area, to ensure continuous operation of 911 services in the event of a tornado.
There is a separate electrical system and a generator for power backup in the event of a storm that knocks out electricity to the facility.
“We try to keep up to date on any emergency,” she said.
Earthquakes are also a possibility, and one took place last month in this area that registered 2.6 on the Richter scale, she said.
“We sat down and tried to come up with every scenario we could, when storms would come through or any disaster or emergency,” Barnette said.
Other special security features of the new facility include a coded gate and a fenced-in area where staff will park. There are also 23 cameras inside and outside the facility.
The new site will also house the County Road Department, which will soon relocate from its longtime site at the White County Fairgrounds on Davis Drive. Renovation of another portion of the former trucking company is almost complete, too, where the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office will be moved from downtown Searcy.
The nonemergency phone number for the White County 911 Communications Center is (501) 279-6241.