A happy E/9-1-1 Director Delisa Coggins shows off her department's new mobile wireless emergency communication system, known as a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP). The wireless system allows the 9-1-1 system to receive calls even if AT&T telephone service is interrupted or dispatchers are forced to evacuate the call center. Cherokee County E/9-1-1 service just got even more reliable.

E/9-1-1 Director Delisa Coggins and her staff of dispatchers are now equipped with a mobile wireless emergency communication system, known as a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP).

The wireless system allows the 9-1-1 system to receive calls even if AT&T telephone service is interrupted or dispatchers are forced to evacuate the call center.

“We chose this technology to make sure our citizens will be able to reach us when they dial 9-1-1, regardless if we are at our 9-1-1 center or we have to evacuate,” Coggins said. “Our job is to provide the services that are needed when a person in our community calls 9-1-1 for help. This technology will help us meet that objective.”

Coggins said she wished she had the new system a couple of weeks ago when strong storms knocked out power to the 9-1-1 center and the backup generation units malfunctioned, forcing dispatchers to relocate to the Emergency Operations Center in the ground floor of the nearby Peachtree Centre. The dispatchers then went back to work once AT&T forwarded the calls to the EOC.

The new technology allows the 9-1-1 emergency center to transport the wireless units anywhere.

“We can even go out of state and accept the county’s emergency calls,” Coggins said. “(The system) just reroutes the 9-1-1 numbers to those (wireless) numbers.”

The new system has the capability of receiving five wireless calls at a time — that’s more than sufficient for the county’s 9-1-1 call volume, Coggins noted.

The two wireless units, supplied by Advanced Cellular Communications, came with a price tag of $14,000. A cost that would be out of the price range for most financially-strapped counties right now. But county officials decided smartly to save their 9-1- 1 tariff money (a fee added onto county residents’ monthly phone bill) for just such upgrades to the county’s 9-1-1 system.

Cherokee County Assistant Administrator Holland Belue believes strongly in the new technology.

“This is a way to ensure 9-1-1 is available to all county residents,” he said. “Citizens will have contact with dispatchers in any emergency situation.”