THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 8, 1995 TAG: 9501070112
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 169 lines
POLICE CAPT. ALICE HOLMES knows what it feels like to push the officer-in-trouble button and know that dispatchers are her link to every other officer on duty.
Now she's learning what it's like on the other side of that alarm button.
She's the commander of a communications division that brings the city's 911 dispatchers under the management of the police department.
Her neighbor in the next office of the Emergency Operations Center is Fire Capt. John O'Neal.
O'Neal is accustomed to responding to everything from medic calls to hazardous waste spills. But these days, he's attending more meetings than fires and he's adjusting to a behind-the-scenes responsibility for the big picture on emergencies from full-hit hurricanes to hazardous materials accidents.
Fire Chief Donald Newberry carries the title of Emergency Services coordinator, but as deputy coordinator, O'Neal is the city's on-site guru of disaster planning.
Battalion Chief Grover Hollomon is a part-time deputy coordinator, spending about 50 percent of his time on Emergency Services.
Portsmouth lost its director and assistant director of Emergency Services and Safety to the city layoffs announced in June.
By late summer, the department was reorganized under the city's police and fire departments - those entities most connected to the city's underground lifeline.
``We've wanted from the police standpoint . . . to get involved with dispatch as long as I've been here,'' Police Chief Dennis Mook said.
``In excess of 93 percent of dispatch work involves the police department,'' he said.
Bringing it into the police family, Mook said, will give police and dispatchers a better opportunity to understand and appreciate each other's problems.
Other cities already have dispatchers under the police department.
Likewise, O'Neal said incorporating emergency services into the fire department appears to be a trend throughout the state and even nationally.
``We are used to handling emergencies on a daily basis,'' O'Neal said. ``I think it's kind of a natural progression for the fire service to take on (large-scale disaster planning).''
Mook tapped Holmes to head the communications division because of her management and personnel skills.
``She's fair, but she's tough,'' he said.
Holmes joined the police department 15 years ago and in 1987 became the first woman promoted to sergeant. Four years later she was promoted to lieutenant and served most of that time as a commander for the uniform patrol's midnight shift.
She was promoted to captain this year and was commander of the detective bureau when Mook reassigned her to head the department's new communications division.
``We knew that a change was going to be coming about with the dispatchers coming back under the direction of the police department and that was being discussed quite a bit,'' said Holmes, 42. ``I thought with my new assignment I probably was not going to be considered.''
Holmes was pleased when Mook told her.
``I took it as a challenge to come over here and work since it was so different for everybody,'' she said. ``It was sort of a new territory.
``If a year from now things are better, then I will feel I've accomplished something,'' she said.
Holmes said there was apprehension on both sides as far as what the change would mean, but that the transition has been smooth.
The dispatchers were assigned police uniforms and are adjusting well to their place in the department and a new chain of command, she said.
The biggest problem Holmes has faced so far has been the same one her predecessors faced - scheduling around the clock, seven days a week with too few dispatchers.
Currently, the staff is down six dispatchers from the allotted 30. Some are in training and others are on extended sick leave, Holmes said.
``There are a lot of in-house problems when you don't have enough people,'' she said.
Dispatchers are pulling double shifts and working days off to keep the dispatch room covered.
``It's not just a once-in-while thing,'' said Holmes. ``But their dedication is showing through.''
But, she added, ``eventually it's going to take its toll.''
Despite that, Holmes said she is constantly receiving supportive messages from the dispatchers, things like ``Hang in there, I know you're trying.''
``That brightens my day,'' she said. ``I think they realize I have a lot to do working things out and answers are not going to come easy.''
The department will ask that money earmarked for part-time dispatchers be re-allocated for full-time personnel, Mook said. He believes the continuity of full-time personnel will ease problems in scheduling.
Holmes eventually hopes to develop a volunteer staff of dispatchers similar to those on the police auxiliary.
Once the issues of staffing and scheduling are resolved, Holmes and Mook both anticipate more training for dispatchers.
But Holmes already is impressed with the expertise of a staff that keeps its fingers on the pulse of the city.
The staff takes about 134,000 emergency 911 calls a year, and another 300,000 non-emergency calls. They make about 250,000 dispatches to police, fire ambulance and sheriff's deputies.
But few calls are as simple as pushing a button and dispatching help, Holmes said.
In addition, dispatchers do about 120,000 computer checks on traffic and criminal records and make about 60,000 calls for assistance from everyone to traffic engineers and auto wreckers to child protective service workers.
``I want people to know how much falls on their shoulders - how much responsibility actually goes on in that room,'' Holmes said.
Capt. O'Neal planned to take off on his 33rd birthday.
Hurricane Gordon changed that. O'Neal came into work to face his first major storm, a late blooming hurricane that was making an erratic journey up the East Coast.
O'Neal was a little nervous, but mostly confident that the existing plans were good and that he was linked to a solid assortment of veterans on the emergency scene.
By nightfall the storm had turned, and O'Neal made it to the annual police and firemen's ball.
Like Holmes, Capt. O'Neal is still adjusting to his new digs in a basement office away from his firefighting comrades. He readily admits a part of him still wants to be with others on the day-to-day emergency scenes.
``I was one of those type of kids who used to hang around the fire station when I was a . . . boy,'' he said. ``I always wanted to be a fireman.''
He started volunteering with the Bennetts Creek rescue squad when he was 16 years old. He was told emergency medical training would be a plus in a fire service career, so he became a paramedic.
He began his career as a firefighter 13 years ago, but has continued to work as a paramedic part time.
``It's a good feeling to know you can help somebody,'' he said.
O'Neal, promoted to lieutenant four years ago, made captain in 1992. He has served on the Hazardous Materials Team since it was started in 1988 and was most recently the team's shift commander.
He was one of the first to volunteer for the team, which is led by Portsmouth firefighters and supplemented with firefighters from other area cities.
``It was a unique educational opportunity,'' he said. ``I feel like it really helped my fire service career.''
That background in hazardous materials also might be one of the reasons that he was tapped for his job as deputy coordinator of Emergency Services.
While O'Neal misses his old job, he is increasingly fascinated with his new one.
He's received training under the state's Department of Emergency Services and is learning just how wide is the network of public and private agencies prepared to work together if the city were hit with disaster.
Part of O'Neal's job is to coordinate with those agencies.
``As far as the detail of planning that's involved, there is a lot of behind-the-scenes work I didn't know went on as a responder,'' he said. ``It has been very enlightening.''
The department currently is revising its Emergency Operations Plan, O'Neal said, and it will do more detailed hazardous material planning.
But one of his goals, he said, is to provide training to the general public, as well, whether it be at churches or civic leagues.
``I can't emphasize that enough,'' he said. ``Families need to think ahead three days until federal help could get in here.'' MEMO: The state is preparing a film and program on emergencies. Groups that
would like to schedule the program should call 393-8551.
ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by Mark Mitchell
Police Capt. Alice Holmes and Fire Capt. John O'Neal lead the newly
reorganized emergency and safety services for the city.[cover
photo]
The dispatchers take about 134,000 emergency 911 calls a year, and
another 300,000 non-emergency calls. They make about 250,000
dispatches to police, fire ambulance and sheriff's deputies.
by CNB