NAMPA, Idaho — Did you know that this month is the 56th anniversary of 9-1-1 service in the United States? The first call was made in February of 1968.
To recognize the anniversary, Idaho News 6 took a trip down to the Nampa Dispatch Station to speak with the people who answer the phone when you call 9-1-1.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story.)
"911, what’s the address of the emergency," Said Lauryn Flores, a dispatcher from The Nampa Police Department.
Any time you dial those three numbers, 9-1-1, a dispatch center like this is the first line to get help.
“Every day is different," Flores said.
Flores, has worked with the department for 6 years.
Most days though, start with the staff logging in to their monitors. Which are 65-inch curved TV screens.
Almost every pixel is filled with valuable information like police databases, maps, and locations of every officer on duty.
Just a glimpse into how technology has changed in the over 50 years that 9-1-1 has been a service.
Now dispatchers can get an exact location of where you calls come from.
“Just the ability to call in and have their coordinates come in to our screen," Flores said. "I think it’s helped tremendously to help people who maybe don’t know where they are or aren’t able to communicate what they need at that time.”
While dispatchers aren’t the ones to show up to the scene, they control the vital first steps of the process.
“We get the call, we take the information, we hear the screams, we hear the cries, and we’re the ones to calm those people down and make it a safe environment, hopefully for the first responders cause that’s our goal to make sure that our officers are safe as well as the public," Flores said.
