In Your Corner

On a recent visit to the County’s 911 call centers an item brought to our attention was the large number of non-emergency requests they receive. These calls are an unwarranted load on the operators and can interfere with response to real emergencies. As we discussed last year’s 270,000+ 911 calls we became informed about the Treasure Coast’s 211 Information Hot Line. Only two of our Board members had ever heard of it and none were aware of the services available. Obviously spreading this information will be helpful to our residents and perhaps even save a few taxpayer dollars.

Dialing 211 from any phone should be used for all help requests that are not true time-sensitive emergencies. The person answering 211 calls will be an operator from the Alliance of Information & Referral Systems or “AIRS”. According to their website: http://www.211palmbeach.org/ there are over 1,300 agencies offering 3,300 community related services just by dialing 211. These range from suicide/depression/elder-care counseling to a yellow page directory and local information. We strongly encourage our readers to visit the web site and make their friends, neighbors and family members aware of this 211 service. The caller will get better, faster and more comprehensive non-emergency service - while improving true emergency responses.

The reason for our visit was a rumored addition to an already complicated 911 system. There are currently five different call centers operating from four locations in Martin County.  The two largest, the MC Sheriff’s and MC Fire/Rescue are co-located in the same room at the County’s new Emergency Operations Center.  However, they differ in management, supervision, computer programs, union representation, work rules and pay.  In addition, there are separate facilities for the City of Stuart, Jupiter Island and a MC Sheriff’s satellite center in Indiantown.  There is also a “hot” (running but unmanned) back up location in the County’s old emergency “bunker”.

This rather complicated system is helped to function efficiently by location routing of the 80% of calls made from “landline” phones.  The Sheriff’s EOC operators automatically receive all cell phone calls. They then manually transfer them to the appropriate agency based on location and type of service needed.

We recognize that separate specialized training (and management and funding) are needed for 911 operators but, with declining government revenues, more should be done to streamline the operation.  Consolidation in the EOC of the Sheriff’s Indiantown operation would be a start.  Another would be more reliance on the County’s extensive Technology Services (Information Technology) Department to integrate and upgrade the various 911 services. 

Unfortunately the current trend is to further separate the 911 systems. The City of Stuart is proceeding to build a fire station north of the Roosevelt Bridge where the County has been providing service. When this happens they apparently intend to separately dispatch all of their Fire/Rescue calls. Presently the County dispatches both Stuart and MC Fire/Rescue units after transfer from the Stuart 911 call center. This can result in both County and City resources responding to relatively minor emergency calls.   It appears that the City expects to save money by making sure that the MC Fire/Rescue does not respond unless specifically requested to do so. This will prevent the City from being automatically billed for unnecessary services. 

In summary, the system functions well, but could certainly be improved through consolidation.  Next year the agreements under which the County provides Fire/Rescue service to Jupiter Island and Sewall’s Point will be up for renewal.  This would be an excellent time to revisit the possibility of a Countywide Fire/Rescue service, as well as upgrading and consolidation of the 911 systems.