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
8