Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 2, 1991 TAG: 9104020227
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER/ NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
The service - with computer screens immediately identifying sources of emergency calls - is in dispatching facilities in the two law-enforcement agencies.
In the glare of TV lights from several stations, Vaughan was his typical matter-of-fact self in that first call. "Hello, Mayor, how are you?" he said. "Seems like we got it on schedule. . . . Gonna help us all."
"No bugs in it," he told a reporter after hanging up.
Hancock said preparation for the service has been under way for several years. It required street names and house numbers for the computer to pinpoint the source of each call. The county had to create much of that data.
"But that's been done, and all that's now been programmed into the telephone company's computer," Hancock said. Whenever someone make a police, fire or health emergency call, he said, "we know who they are and where they are" even if contact is lost.
Pulaski Town Manager Don Holycross said the data is stored in a C&P Telephone Co. computer in Silver Spring, Md. "The advantage to us being tied into that is, whenever they update their records, our records are updated, too," he said.
Residents of Pulaski County, including Pulaski and Dublin, can reach any emergency service by dialing 911. The system simplifies calling and gives dispatchers immediate information about where to respond.
The old town and county emergency dispatch numbers now are regular business numbers. C&P started adding 42 cents to each telephone customer's monthly bill on March 15 for the new service.
Pulaski County is the third valley locality with a 911 system. Radford was first, and Montgomery County's started last December.
by CNB