| History | Personnel
| Calling 911 |
| Call Statistics | Improvements
|
The 911 Center welcomes visitors for individual or group tours. Those interested in visiting the center may call 677-0325 to make arrangements.
Venango County began 911 operations on December 7, 1995. The agency operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Its staff includes four full-time Supervisor/Telecommunicator
II's, six full-time Telecommunicator I's, and seven part-time Telecommunicator
I's.
They are responsible for answering emergency calls for all 31 municipalities
in Venango County.
The professional staff has been trained and certified to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania standards, including APCO (Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials), Powerphone (Fire and Police Dispatching).
The minimum standards set by the Commonwealth are call-taking: 104 hours, fire dispatching: 16 hours, police dispatching: 32 hours, and emergency medical dispatching: 16 hours.
John Anderson
- Director
Virginia Braden - Secretary
Ginger McFadden - Mapping/Addressing
Supervisors:
Linda Holtz
Mary Beth White
Thomas Sherman
Steve Rembold
Full-time Telecommunicators:
Don Bellinger
Justin Dolby
Matt Exley
Theron McDaniel
Ryan Smith
Patrick Priel
Part-time
Telecommunicators:
Mark Seigworth
Wendy Warrington
Mark Hicks
Bill Lamberton
Kelly Buchanon
Jean McGraw
Billie McElhaney
Making a call for assistance to 911 is often stressful, and most people hope they will never have to make one. A trained Telecommunicator will answer the call and interrogate the call to determine the type of assistance required.
Unknown to the caller, a second Telecommunicator is listening to the call and will have the call dispatched to the proper emergency agency before the interrogation is complete. It may seem the one who answers the 911 call for help is wasting precious time asking questions, when in fact; the additional information gathered on the phone will be relayed to the responding units so crews can be better prepared to handle the situation once they arrive. Telecommunicators at 911 center must be able to handle several tasks simultaneously. This includes listening to the caller, dispatching units, listening to multiple radio channels and entering information into the CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch) system.
The center has made some improvements at its facility over the past year. It is still working with Verizon to replace the router.
The purpose of a router directs the call to the proper public safety answering point. During this process, the center has updated its Automatic Location Identification and Automatic Number Identification.
This program replaces the existing system that was only 30 percent accurate; at present time, the center is at 98 percent accuracy.
The 911 Center is working with L Robert Kimball & Associates to implement Phase I & Phase II wireless; hopes are to be Phase I wireless by March 2006.
Phase I wireless means the center will be able to tell where a call is coming from by the cellular tower that the call comes in on.
The 911 center has purchased a mobile command vehicle which will be used as a command post at any big event that is going on in the county and as a back-up 911 center if an evacuation is necessary at the Oil City facility.
In 2004, Venango County 911 received and dispatched 36,031 calls for assistance as compared to 36,792 in 2003.
These calls included 6,849 emergency medical calls; 6,073 fire service calls; 8,110 requests for police services; 29 weather alerts; and 7,622 administrative calls which include after-hours answering for some Venango County Agencies.
The agencies include Mental Heath/Mental Retardation Services, Children and Youth Services, Area Agency on Aging, Court Supervision, First Response Team, In-Home Program, Intenstive Case Management, Venango County Sheriff's office and calls for the coroner's office.
Other administrative calls would include police requests for towing services, and public utility notifications during outages.
The agency also handled 2,980 traffic stops for local police departments; additionally it processed Criminal History requests for Venango County court system and local police agencies. In 2004, it processed 4,458 requests.
In 2003,
911 received and dispatched 36,792 calls for assistance as compared to 25,661
in 2002.
These calls included 8,076 emergency medical calls, 6,631 fire calls, 8,411
police calls and 7,087 administrative calls which include after-hours answering
for several Venango County agencies like Mental Heath/Mental Retardation Services,
Children and Youth Services, Area Agency on Aging, Court Supervision, First
Response Team, In-Home Program, Intenstive Case Management, Venango County
Sheriff's office and calls for the coroner's office.
Other administrative calls would include police request for towing services
and public utility notifications during outages.
911 also handled 2,.253 traffic stops for local police departments.
911 also process criminal history requests for the Venango County Court System
and local police agencies.
In 2003, there were 4,290 requests processed.