News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Cumberland County E-911 is undertaking major changes to improve emergency services across the county.
Director Eric Ritzman said that among those changes, is a new website. Ritzman said the site has launched and gives residents a survey to provide needed information before an emergency happens.
“If they have someone living there that has dementia or they have oxygen canisters stored or something that they would like for us to know,” Ritzman said. “They can put that onto that survey and we will input that into our computerized dispatch system. So that we can pass that along to the responders.”
Ritzman said the new website is cumberlandtn911.org.
Ritzman said the next addition to the department is a mobile communications unit, set to begin operations later this summer. Ritzman said the mobile unit will add versatility and relief to the department in a major event.
“Wouldn’t matter if it was a weather event or something man made like a large concert,” Ritzman said. “We can deploy that and put a communicator in that to handle the traffic from that event. So that gives them quicker communications with people working around that scene and then lets us take some of load off of our normal communications traffic.”
Ritzman said a backup communications center will be established at the Fairfield Glade Police Department. Ritzman said it could be operating at reduced capacity within two to three months.
He said the backup center is an extra tool during a major event or emergency.
“That gives us a place to go to, one if we have to evacuate our current facility for any reason,” Ritzman said. “We can go out to there and operate like we would here. It would also give us overflow during a large incident. We could actually staff both of them and work from both centers at the same time.”
Ritzman said the backup communications center could be in full operation in six months, beyond operating at a reduced capacity. He said these departmental moves are a step towards accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies.
