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Jones County EMA staff reaches milestone

Dec 18, 2009

If you have an emergency in Jones County and dial 911, you will be connected to a trained dispatcher at the Jones County Emergency Operations Center (EOC). Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, the staff at the EOC handle thousands of calls for assistance and dispatch emergency services units to respond to the various incidents. What often is not seen is the tremendous amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to keep the EOC up and running and handling a variety of responsibilities that revolve around managing an emergency situation.
The Jones County Emergency Management Agency (EMA), headed by director Don McKinnon, who is a Mississippi Certified Emergency Manager with 30 years experience, is quick to note that it takes a team effort to get the job done every day.
“Our 911 dispatchers are the greatest people in the world and go out of their way to try to do the job right,” notes McKinnon. He adds, “We’re human so we are going to make mistakes, but our goal is to get it right every time.  We handle over 200,000 calls a year through our dispatch center and we have a saying that if we have just a 1 percent error rate, that means ten people could die.  In a normal business, a 1 percent error rate would be considered very acceptable, even very desirable, but that’s not the case in emergency management.”
The staff at the EMA are responsible for the emergency dispatch center, monitoring of weather, fire and hazardous materials situations and may be called to support any emergency mission in Jones County or indeed the State of Mississippi. In McKinnon’s case, and in the case of every employee at the EOC, it’s a job that often deals with tragedy.
“The most tragic call I’ve been on was an airplane crash in Moselle where three people lost their lives,” McKinnon said. “However, each event stays with you — every drowning, every death, every recovery, every disaster — they are not statistics, they are people and it’s something you never forget especially when it involves children.
“The reason we go to work every day is that we are here to support our community and help those in need,” he added. “We put in a lot of hours at work, but it’s never about the hours, it’s about getting the job done regardless of how much time it takes.  Our staff is on call 24/7/365 and we are fortunate to work with lots of people in the public safety sector who go above and beyond the call of duty in their jobs to help others.”
The Deputy Director of the Jones County EMA is Marda Tullos, who has twelve years of experience with the agency. Her job consists of many important functions including being in the office day or night during severe weather events.
“During severe weather, I am tasked with staying in contact with the National Weather Service office in Jackson and when necessary sounding the outdoor warning sirens across the county,” Tullos said. “In addition, we alert law enforcement, career and volunteer fire departments, Dixie Electric, Mississippi Power, nursing homes, some day care centers, the National Guard and large businesses so they can be aware of pending weather events.
“My position also entails Homeland Security duties and reporting responsibility to the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA),” she noted. “I am tasked with providing monthly and quarterly reports to MEMA, including those for the Jones County EMA Council, taking and preparing minutes, office administration, ordering of supplies and keeping a measure of the rainfall received each day.”
When asked what her most memorable moment has been over the past twelve years, Tullos was quick to note a two word answer that every employee at the EOC knows by heart — Hurricane Katrina.
“The magnitude of the devastation was unbelievable,” she said. “We prepared as best we could and had all of our emergency response procedures in place, but it was unbelievable how hard Jones County got hit. Jones County was the worst hit inland county in terms of damage and it was unlike anything I had ever seen.
“We stayed here at the EOC 13 days and nights straight sleeping on the floor and later on cots and only got to go home to get a change of clothes,” Tullos added. “Since communication was out all across the county, none of our family members could get in touch with us to see if we were OK. and we were in the same position not knowing if they were OK. It was wonderful, however, in the midst of such a disaster to see the outpouring of love and generosity as friends, neighbors and volunteers helped each other. We had churches, the American Red Cross and Salvation Army bring food to the EOC so we could take a few minutes to eat each day and keep our worn out personnel nourished. I love helping people and that why I love my job so much as we are in a position to provide that help to others in need.”
The Jones County EOC Communications Manager, Barbara Windham, has nine years of experience with the agency and was a dispatcher before being named to her current position.
“Our 911 dispatchers are at the heart of the emergency response system as they take the phone calls and then begin sending out help to those in need whether it be for law enforcement, emergency medical services, fire departments or members of the Board of Supervisors and their staffs,” advises Windham. “My position requires managing day-to-day operations of the 911 Center, scheduling of dispatchers, reporting to the State of Mississippi on dispatcher certifications and re-certifications and validation of data for the National Crime Information Center (NCIC).
“We have twelve full-time and five part-time dispatchers all of whom are in a rewarding but very stressful job,” she added. “The worst calls we get are when a child is involved or when there is a bad wreck with multiple fatalities especially if those calls involve children. We have three dispatchers on a shift and they work twelve hours straight. We spend more time with each other during that twelve hour shift than we do with our own families and we are like a family with all the stresses that go along with that. It’s a job that not everyone can do, but thankfully we have dedicated people who take the 911 calls and get the emergency response agencies rolling to help.  After an incident occurs, the response starts here with the first 911 call we receive so we work hard to get the information and get help headed to the affected person(s) fast.”
When asked what her most memorable moment has been during the past nine years, Windham noted, “It was the very first day we opened here at our new dispatch center. We had dispatchers at the Laurel Police Department and Jones County Sheriff’s Office plus those standing by here. They switched over the phones and all the phone lines quit. Wow was that a rough day!”
The 911 Administrator, Tammy Wells, has been with the Jones County EMA for 21 years. “When Don and I started, we began working out of the Jones County Courthouse in Laurel and had to use the witness rooms as office space. Later, we moved upstairs to the U.S. Post Office and finally to the new EOC building here on Mason Street.
Noted Wells, “My position is responsible for assigning 911 addresses in the county, maintaining the 911 address database, answering citizens calls, preparing reports, generating identification badges for emergency services personnel and greeting guests to the EOC.”
When asked what her pet peeve was after twenty-one years of service, Wells noted, “If you have a cellular phone and dial 911 it just shows ‘Cellular Call’ when the call comes into our dispatch center. It does provide the longitude and latitude of the caller, but not the physical address you are calling from unlike a home telephone does. If you are conscious and alert and can tell the dispatcher where you are, that’s great, but if not it makes it hard to get emergency help to you. We are approaching the ability to locate by longitude and latitude with the technology the cellular telephone companies have, but we’re not quite there yet.”
Wells also noted that Hurricane Katrina was a milestone event for her as well. “We stayed here at the EOC for two full weeks and slept a few hours each night on army cots in Marda’s office.  Hurricane Katrina was horrible. I cried and felt guilty because we had generator power here at the EOC which meant air conditioning and we got real food each day when others in the community had neither. Hurricane Katrina and the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, were the worst two things I have ever seen in my life.” 
Jones County EOC Communications Technician Richard Ellzey has eight years of experience with the EMA and is tasked with keeping radio systems, phones, software and the 911 system up and running. “We have over 1,200 emergency services radios on our system and have two tower sites that are used for repeating the radio signals across the county. We also operate and maintain the paging system for the volunteer fire departments and our 911 dispatchers page them for incident responses and have just completed a radio system rebanding,” notes Ellzey.
He adds, “I would rather work with this group of people bar none than anyone else. They are dedicated, caring professionals who work day and night to get help to those in need.”
When asked what his most memorable moment had been over the past eight years, Ellzey sighed and said, “Without a doubt for me it was September 11, 2001. We were setting up the equipment in the EOC with less than three weeks to go before we swapped over to central dispatch and Tammy came in and told us the nation was under attack. We quickly set up a television and watched in horror as the events of that day unfolded. We knew then that our jobs and our lives would forever be changed and they certainly have been.” 
Don McKinnon noted in closing that technology continues to change operations at the EOC. A primary example has been the rapid increase in the number of citizens with cell phones. 
“Before cell phones we might only get three or four 911 calls when a vehicle accident occurred as the caller would have to stop at the nearest house or business to make the 911 phone call,” he said. “Now we may get fifty 911 calls due to everyone having a cell phone and calling to report the accident. We want people to call, but please realize it takes time to answer each call, get the information then dispatch emergency services units to the location.
“Technology is a great thing, but it changes and sometimes complicates what we do.”  McKinnon added, “Our main request for the public is to be aware of your surroundings, take steps to prevent or mitigate damages to your property and be ready and able to take care of yourself for at least the first three days of any major disaster. Our emergency services personnel make up just a small fraction of the total population of Jones County and are tasked with providing services in a timely manner. If you as a citizen can help by taking steps to reduce the need for emergency services then the entire system functions much better. We are blessed to live in the best county in the state of Mississippi and we wish everyone a safe and enjoyable holiday season.”

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