5.25.25 – KVOE – Emporia, KS, USA – Tagan Trahoon
Have you ever wondered what might happen if an emergency dispatch center were to lose its base of operations or ability to handle calls? Well, the Kansas 911 Coordinating Council and FirstNet Authority now have a new answer to that question following an unveiling in Salina Thursday afternoon.
During a ribbon-cutting ceremony, the council unveiled the state’s new Emergency Mobile Dispatch Training Center (EMDTC), a mobile dispatch center that can travel to Kansas communities in the event their call-handling operations were to go down for a variety of reasons. The EMDTC contains five fully equipped workstations for 911 call-taking, supports up to six talk groups on the Kansas Statewide System, onboard televisions for real-time news and emergency updates and more.
Lyon County Emergency Communications Center Director Roxanne Van Gundy says this is a crucial tool for dispatch centers across the state, noting that very few centers have a backup center when operations go down. She added that while significant outages or loss of operations are rare, they are not impossible
The rollout of the new unit saw the council working closely with the FirstNet Authority, the agency that oversees the national public safety broadband network, known as FirstNet, which is dedicated to public safety and was established by Congress following 9/11. FirstNet Authority Senior Public Safety Advisor Jennifer McIntyre recently spoke with KVOE News to discuss the mobile unit, saying it is “breaking down the standard four walls” that dispatchers have become accustomed to and taking the technology where it is most needed.
McIntyre adds the unit will be available for more than just moments of catastrophe, noting it will also be a fully functioning training center. More than that, she says it will be capable of training multiple telecommunicators on various systems at the same time.
To access the unit, agencies will need to contact the 911 Coordinating Council. If you would like more information on the FirstNet Authority, visit FirstNet.gov.