Help was only a phone ca during Hurricane Irma
By Uyen Le Schneider
Immediately following an emergency, 9-1-1 operators are often the first providers of the help needed during those critical moments. When a major disaster hits and 9-1-1 centers are flooded with calls for assistance, it is those same operators who put thoughts of their family aside and continue to serve the public; often for days on end.
When Hurricane Irma hit the southeastern United States in early September, South Florida took a hard hit. Emergency management staff and first responders throughout the area worked round-the-clock and when those resources needed additional support they turned to the Emergency Management Assistance Compact. EMAC, the nation’ s state-to-state mutual aid system, received a flood of requests, including one that the Georgia Telecommunicator Emergency Response Taskforce was able to fulfill.
On September 16, six days after Irma made landfall in Florida, Jonathan Jones, Georgia TERT deputy state coordinator, got a call from the Florida TERT coordinator.
Collier County 9-1-1 needed six operators to relieve their dispatch team. These operators needed to be fully trained in dispatching, taking calls and emergency medical dispatching, including giving pre-arrival instructions for patient care. Jones immediately started contacting Georgia TERT members from across the state to see who would be available for a seven to 14 day deployment.
“ I’ ll be honest, sometimes that’ s really hard to get commitment because these people are leaving not only their families at home, but they’ re also leaving the 9-1-1 centers where they also have jobs to do,” said Jones.
Getting the TERT team together was only half the work required to fill the EMAC request. The other half was processing the request through the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency. Jones says that’ s where GEMA / HS’ s Lee Brown and Michael Nix, director of the local
9-1-1 authority, came in.
“ Everybody was working that Sunday morning. It wasn’ t a‘ we’ ll deal with this after we get in the office Monday.’ It was all hands on deck from everybody,” said Jones. As a result of this concerted effort, a team of six fully trained and certified Georgia TERT 9-1-1 operators were deployed to Collier County within 24 hours of the request coming in. This was the first time Georgia TERT ever deployed. The six members were briefed by Jones and Nix on road conditions and other details, but there were still unknowns on the exact conditions they’ d be going into. Still, they went willingly and full of eagerness.
Tameka Kendricks was the designated team leader and one of the six deployed. She says she joined Georgia TERT six years ago, training for this very situation.
“ I really feel like if somebody needs something, and I know I’ m capable, I want to be able to help. To be able to help our brothers and sisters in our line of work, it’ s really a great feeling that we can go offer them some relief,” said Kendricks. She says she didn’ t give a second thought to deploying.
As the team approached the call center, Kendricks says they weren’ t sure what to expect. What they saw just a half mile away from the center was a mobile home community completely torn apart and destroyed. Luckily, the Collier County Emergency Services Center was spared.
Once there, the Georgia TERT team hit the ground running, immediately going through Collier County’ s 9-1-1 training and then getting straight to work, giving Collier County 9-1-1 operators much-needed time off.
“ Some of these people hadn’ t been home for like 10 days. Our job is already stressful and, on top of that, the stress of not knowing the condition of your house or not being able to go home and check on your family, it multiplies the stress by a lot,” said Kendricks. For the next seven days the team assisted by answering calls and doing whatever they could to help. Most of the
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