Towns County 911 upgrades advance on schedule

HIAWASSEE, Ga.- Towns County held a special-called meeting last week to advance plans for the county’s updated 911 command center. A five-year lease agreement was signed with AT&T, in conjunction with West Safety Services, at a cost of $4.260 per month for the emergency telecommunications service. Commissioner Cliff Bradshaw explained that while the county considered purchasing the service, the lease agreement proved to be the better bargain due to maintenance and service costs associated with an owned system.

Bradshaw previously signed a contract in July 2019, upgrading the county’s computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system for emergency services. Towns County 911 Director Marty Roberts explained that the improved system will be custom-tailored to Towns County and that the program is expected to be up and running in late March or early April of 2020. The cost of the enhanced CAD system totals nearly $213,000, a price that Bradshaw defined as a “tremendous amount of money.” The charge is roughly half of the amount that the commissioner expected to spend on the program upon taking office, however, and Bradshaw expressed approval, referencing computer-aided dispatch as “the heartbeat of 911.”

911 dispatchers will receive additional training prior to the introduction of the advanced system, and the hardware and software – with servers, links, and terminals – are included in the modernized package. Roberts said that mobile CADs will be installed in ambulances for the first time in county history, allowing paramedics to view precise locations of medical emergencies on maps while exchanging critical information with the call center. The system will subsequently reduce radio traffic, freeing talk-time over the airwaves. The same company which has provided CAD service in Towns County for more than a decade will supply the innovated program. Union and White counties currently employ a similar system.

Roberts, who described the soon-to-be advanced center as second to none, said that the upgraded phone system will “cut live” simultaneously with the CAD program in early spring, and an open house will be held at the Towns County Emergency Operations Center.