DATE: Wednesday, April 30, 1997             TAG: 9704300490

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   45 lines

CHESAPEAKE UNVEILS 911 BACKUP PLAN

Hurricanes, fires and floods. Power outages and gas leaks. Bomb threats.

When disaster strikes, people count on being able to dial 911 for help. But what happens when the city's 911 dispatching center faces an emergency? Chesapeake, in answering that question, unveiled its backup plan Tuesday.

It's a miniature police station on wheels - a bus equipped with 13 cellular telephone lines, big enough to carry eight people and technologically advanced enough to dispatch all of the city's emergency telephone calls, said Robert McCracken, city communications coordinator.

Virginia Beach has a similar mobile operations center.

If needed, the bus can take over 911 service in Chesapeake within a matter of minutes - without interrupting calls - simply by calling the communications company that installed the technology, GTE Wireless, McCracken said. The mobile unit also will be able to handle the city's proposed 800 megahertz radio system.

Chesapeake paid for the $316,000 bus with city funds and money raised from emergency 911 service fees, which are added to monthly telephone bills, McCracken said.

Police say the bus fills an important need.

``We can't afford to miss any calls,'' said police Capt. Edward White. ``People have an expectation that when they call, we will respond.''

The new mobile operations center replaces an outdated, ``dilapidated'' 1970s-era recreational vehicle that Chesapeake police have used for years, White said.

Emergency dispatchers also will be able to travel directly to the scene of a major disaster - such as an airplane crash - rather than wait for individual police cars to report back to the station, said Mark S. Cox, Chesapeake's director of public communications. The bus will not normally travel around the city, however.

``I hope we never have to use it,'' Cox said. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by STEVE EARLEY/The Virginian-Pilot

This Mobile Emergency Operations Center will be used should

Chesapeake's 911 center ever be out of working order because of a

natural disaster or telephone outage. It is set up for cellular

phone service. KEYWORDS: CHESAPEAKE POLICE DEPARTMENT 911

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