St. Tammany News

For the first time in St. Tammany Parish history, fire departments parishwide will have a centralized dispatching location in Covington, a move three years in the making that is expected to shave life-saving minutes off response times.

On Oct. 1, Communication District No. 1 will unveil a state-of-the-art communications centers in the Emergency Operations Center on Boston Street, with 12 newly trained dispatchers, Tom Buell, district chairman, said. With nearly $500,000 worth of state-of-the-art equipment and an annual operating budget of $300,000, 10 of the parish's 14 fire districts will locate in the center. Goodbee, Pearl River, Slidell and Covington's fire department opted to maintain their own dispatching units, Buell said.

"Usually a call is transferred in 10 to 20 seconds. But now one person is entering in the information while the person sitting on the side of them can dispatch the call," said Scott Brewer, communications supervisor for Fire Protection District 12, who worked to develop the center. "Minutes are shaved off responses."

That's precious time for emergency responders. A person suffering a heart attack has four to five minutes before suffering serious damage or death, and a house fire doubles in size every 60 seconds, Brewer said.

"This puts this us in the same room as everybody else. They're 5 feet away. Heck, you could yell across the room. We can all back each other up. This is something that we have needed for some time," he said.

In the past, the largest problem lied in miscommunication, said Communication District No. 1 Director H.W. "Woody" Glover Jr.

When someone is having a heart attack, a request for ambulance services does not always route through 911. That leaves fire departments, equipped with EMTs and automatic electronic defibrillators, unaware of the need. Typically, those fire departments can respond faster and stabilize a patient until ambulances arrive.

"There's been ambulance calls that fire departments don't know about it before it's too late," Glover said. "This has been a concern of ours for a good while. I'm sure there has been occasions when (somebody died.)"

This summer in Folsom it nearly happened. A women's lips turned blue, her pulse dropped and officials feared she was dead before CPR was administered and color flushed back into her face. The event was overshadowed by another fear: It took ambulance service provider 20 minutes to arrive on the scene.

"Bush and Sun and Folsom, these people need help, too," Buell said. "And this will help. We can get Covington" at the scene faster.

Since all calls are routed into the new system, the new dispatching center is better streamlined, Buell said. If one fire district's entire fleet is battling a fire or other emergency, or somebody is waiting on an ambulance, it's easier to coordinate an alternative response, Buell said. It also saves fire departments from duplicating equipment costs and manpower, he said.

Although Covington, Mandeville and Slidell already have dispatching centers, typically no more than two people are manning the lines instead of the no less than three at the new center.

"None of those (centers) have enough to meet our current standards," Brewer said.

Now it does. The new center is outfitted with a new phone and radio system, mapping programs and computer-aided dispatch, or CAD, a tracking system that instantly produces the cross streets of 911 callers and the nearest ambulance, fire and police services. It's modeled after a communications center in Shreveport, thought to be the No. 1 dispatch center in the nation, Brewer said.

All involved credit Parish President Kevin Davis, who championed the consolidation for three years. Funding issues, however, halted the plans until now. The Communication District dedicated a $1 and 85 cent fee on all landline and cell phone bills parishwide to the project, a move approved by voters 20 years ago, Buell said.

"While this doesn't solve all our problems, it's a step in the right direction," Glover said.