Avalanche of Calls Besiege 911 Dispatch

Snow plows and 911 operators worked overtime during the recent storm. Eric Gross The ice storm that paralyzed Putnam County a week ago Sunday resulted in a record number of emergency calls being made to the county’s 911 Dispatch Center.

On Monday, Commissioner of Emergency Services Robert McMahon invited the Courier to the center, where chief dispatcher Cindy Jacobsen reported 857 calls received from 11am to 4pm on Dec. 13, with 629 of the calls received within the three hour period from 11:30am to 2:30pm. The number was the most in the county’s history dating back to the origination of county wide 911 in March of 2005.

Dispatcher Ed Scott joined five other dispatchers who were called into duty: “Many of the callers were angry about the road conditions and the lack of response by DOT personnel. Such technically non-emergency calls from frustrated drivers tied up the lines. People are using 911 as a catch-all number to gain information around the county, from Putnam Valley to Patterson. They don’t understand that 911 is for emergencies, and when they call asking for road conditions they are delaying possible response to the next phone call, which could be an actual emergency.”

Dispatcher Bob Ridpath was also on duty that Sunday: “Everyone might be focused on their own particular need but the system became overwhelmed. It is not designed to handle that number of calls. We encouraged people to ‘hunker down’ and stay where they were and that help would be on the way.”

Dispatcher Brian Neary was also called in. Neary admitted that the day was “very stressful. People had to realize that the dispatchers were doing the best job possible and motorists yelling and screaming at us was doing no one any good.”

During the height of the calls, Neary received a true 911 emergency when a woman phoned to report her 5-yearold daughter choking on a morsel of food. “I explained to several of the callers stuck on the road that I was sympathetic to their needs but I had a real emergency on my hands,” said Neary.

Thankfully the child turned out to be OK after she was checked out by paramedics and EMTs as well as the staff at Putnam Hospital Center.

Others working on that mad Sunday were Dispatchers Fred Sohr, Anthony Nistico, and Shawn Madsen.

McMahon commended the six dispatchers for “going above and beyond the call. These professionals assured the public that help was on the way while advising that their need of a sand truck might not have been as lifethreatening as the next person calling with a life-and-death emergency situation.”