Lawton Politics

In an effort to find the answer to our users questions we sent an email out to Bart Hadley, fire Chief for the City of Lawton.
Our email and responses are below.
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Mr. Hadley,
We at LawtonPolitics.com have had a post dealing with communications and the effectiveness of the city and counties ability to cope with disater. Would you be able to provide an answer to this question please.

"I wonder what would happen if the city's communications center developed a glitch. As in if the dispatchers were unable to hear transmissions by the law enforcement and fire departments, etc. Since the entire system is now in one building, what would they do? "

If you are unable to answer this question, then could you please direct us to who can answer this question.

The Deputy
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Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 11:05:19 -0500 [07/16/2007 10:05:19 AM MDT]
From: Bart Hadley United States
To: deputy@lawtonpolitics.com
Cc: dmorgan@cityof.lawton.ok.us, Dewayne Burk
Subject: RE: [NEWSENDER] - Information Request. - Message is from an unknown sender
Headers: Show All Headers

The person to best answer that question would be the Supervisor of the Regional 911 system, Derrell Morgan. I have included his contact information below. However I can tell you that there has always been a back-up plan for such issues, and now with the merger in place, it is my understanding that we have even more dependable and efficient options available. We have the ability to switch 911 calls to one of my fire stations and should this ever be necessary, the dispatchers would then operate out of that station, taking and dispatching calls and communicating via radio with our emergency responders (fire, police, ambulance, etc.). In addition to that, we now also have the ability to transfer to our back-up 911 center at the courthouse. It might be important to note that through some lobbying efforts, we have secured money from the state to build a more state of the art, bunkered, secure facility to house not only our communications center, but also our Emergency Operations Center as well. When completed, it will obviously continue to be the communications center for Lawton, Ft. Sill, Comanche County (including the 1st responders from many communities within our county, but it is expected that this "Regional EOC and 911 Center" will ultimately house more than just the current users and that it could expand to include much or all of SW Oklahoma.

Derrell R. Morgan II
Emergency Communications
Work: 580-581-3492
Fax: 580-581-3495
Cell: 580-704-6339
dmorgan@cityof.lawton.ok.us

Bart Hadley Jr.
Fire Chief
Lawton Fire Department
623 SW 'D' Avenue, Lawton OK, 73501
Office (580) 581-3280, Fax (580) 581-3512, Cell (580) 351-4252

"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." --- Aristotle
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Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 16:27:55 -0500 [07/16/2007 03:27:55 PM MDT]
From: Derrell Morgan United States
To: Bart Hadley , deputy@lawtonpolitics.com
Cc: Derrell Morgan , Dewayne Burk
Subject: RE: [NEWSENDER] - Information Request. - Message is from an unknown sender
Headers: Show All Headers
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"I wonder what would happen if the city's communications center developed a glitch. As in if the dispatchers were unable to hear transmissions by the law enforcement and fire departments, etc. Since the entire system is now in one building, what would they do? "
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Deputy,

If the communications center was unable to receive radio transmissions by law enforcement and fire departments the supervisor would immediately notify our electronics department and outline what the problem was. If the problem affected the states 800 mhz system the state would be notified and they would activate technical personnel to troubleshoot the system and bring it back online. During the time the system was down the public safety system would utilize the conventional radio system to the degree it was able.

If the problem is specific to the communications center, a glitch that affected the networked radios, the operators would switch to the radio console on each dispatch position. That radio is used to monitor and communicate on the primary talk group for that position. There are two additional portable radios that are available for use in the communications center and during an extreme case we could access additional portable radios through Emergency Management and local public safety agencies. This system will be used until electronics is able to correct the problem with the radio network. In addition to the 800 mhz capability we have six conventional portable radios to be used to cover conventional radio circuits.

Should the communications center be compromised by natural or manmade means we would relocate the communications center and operate using portable radios. We would transfer 9-1-1 calls to a predesignated circuit. We would work with this system until we could reactivate our current communications center or relocate to an alternate facility.

This communications center is an incredibly important asset to first responders and the public as a whole. As it continues to evolve it becomes more efficient and harder to replace. We are in the process of providing a hardened secure center. With the states 800 mhz radio system we are able to communicate from most places with portable radios. With AT&T's hosted solution we will be able to send call takers to alternate centers and answer phones as though they were in the current communications center. Finally we are looking into ways of networking our Computer Aided Dispatch system so it can be used from remote locations.

This communications center is committed to providing the best service possible. We will continue to look for ways to improve our systems efficiency, service, and disaster mitigation.

Derrell R. Morgan II
City of Lawton
Emergency Communications
Work: 580-581-3492
Fax: 580-581-3495
Cell: 580-704-6339
dmorgan@cityof.lawton.ok.us

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I hope that this goes to answer the questions raised.

The Deputy

"Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants."

Frederick DOUGLASS
In famous plea for free speech in Boston 1860
American abolitionist, author, orator (1