Archive: Around Town

The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) sponsors an annual week-long celebration of National Public Safety Telecommunications Week.  This event is celebrated each year during the second full week of April, which this year is April 10-16, 2011.

Bill Carrow, President - APCO International, said, "This week is set aside in order to honor the hard work and dedication of our public safety telecommunications professionals.  The personnel receiving emergency calls constantly deal with the public in their most dire of times. Radio dispatch personnel ensure that appropriate equipment and personnel are alerted and respond to the scene.  They also maintain surveillance over first responders in the field, acting as their life-line to ensure they make it to the scene and back safely. Our call-takers and dispatchers are truly the first of the first responders, because without them no fire apparatus, police cars or ambulances would be dispatched.  They act as the vital link in the chain."

Lee Shurtleff, Director of the Tompkins County Department of Emergency Response, noted that Tompkins County 911 operators and dispatchers process over 50,000 responses, generated through more than 175,000 calls for service each year  Shurtleff said. "Their dedication and professionalism serves the residents and visitors to our county very well. We can be proud of our emergency communications personnel and the services they provide us."

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