For 26 years Steve Lipscomb has been charged with managing the Summers County 911 Center, the operation center for emergencies of all types and for knowing where everything and everyone is in this community when emergency calls come in.
With an extensive background in technology after years of working with what was known as the ‘tech job’ of the 70s and 80s, Radio Shack, Lipscomb’s knowledge of ham radio, the initial handheld calculator and the cutting edge of consumer technology, he was able to mastermind what was needed to set up the ‘central’ dispatching center the community wanted and needed.
Today, after coordinating emergency responses to derecho, flooding and other natural emergencies. Lipscomb handles his responsibilities with confidence. There have been many opportunities to learn, punt and upgrade over the years, yet, for Lipscomb “nothing is perfect.”
Lipscomb wears many titles as he serves as director of the Summers County Enhanced 911 system, the director of the Office of Emergency Management and the director of Summers County Mapping and Addressing.
He and Margert Kruljac, geographic info systems coordinator, have worked together for a decade making it easier to locate residents in an emergency. Thanks to the naming of every road and branch, GPS and other available technology, Kruljac and Lipscomb and the staff have produced the green signs erected throughout the county clearly naming roads, streets, and what were once perhaps even remote driveways and have given all of them names.
Residents have suggested names, in other cases, Lipscomb and Kruljac have come up with names without assistance. Route numbers and mailbox numbers are no longer delaying emergency responders. And, thanks to technology, 911 can guide firefighters, law enforcement and ambulances exactly to the location where help is needed.
The mapping, tracking and zoom-in on neighborhoods have created the precision required to reduce response times. When someone calls 911, Lipscomb said, “we can find and locate them most of the time,” whether out hiking in the woods, on public roads or in the privacy of their own homes, offices and gathering places.
Since the derecho hit over a decade ago, broadcast towers, communication and power were heavily impacted. Lipscomb and the local government made sure the probability of lost communication is far less of a risk in an emergency by purchasing and installing generators — large and small — to carry the weight of the communications system.
Peering into what many would call “master control,” Lipscomb constructed the necessary state-of-the-art communications equipment needed to keep sources efficiently coming and going. Backup after backup is in place, the control room fortified by extra thick walls and secure entry. A multi-line phone system is easily monitored and keeps dispatchers aware of every call.
The dispatchers perform as “operation central” for all emergencies and the orchestration of responses, from one end to the other in the 400 square mile county. Locations, stations, residences and services are lit up as each emergency is covered or reached in the least amount of time. It’s challenging, but reciprocal arrangements with other counties help when the clock matters most.
Where extremely remote or time-consuming travel is required, like Zion Mountain, operations are set up to allow emergency dispatches from both directions, from Station 13 on the Hinton end to the Forest Hill Volunteer Fire Station at the other end. A lot of planning has gone into this over the years, according to Lipscomb, and a quick tour of 911 shows how precisely and carefully everything has been laid out and coordinated.
Seasoned professionals who have served the county for many years sit in the dispatchers’ chairs, ready and skilled in the procedures and coordination of responses to emergencies. Having worked together through every form of emergency, the emergency response system dispatchers run like a well-oiled machine to get the job done.
All the 911 dispatchers, which include Lipscomb, Mike Bennett, Randy Bennett, Mark Mansfield, Margert Kruljac, Margie McLaughlin, Carolyn Kelly, Sam Richmond, Heath Ward, Carmine Cales and Robbie Bennett, can be reached around the clock
Major emergencies can bring many people and agencies together to respond immediately. Lipscomb, his skilled team, emergency response offices, FEMA, Red Cross and other state and federal agencies have periodically needed to come together in one huge effort in one of the large offices in the 911 center.
A call to 911 is the best and fastest way to reach help, whether for a house fire, a car accident, tornado, flood, robbery, power outage, smoke-filled air from a controlled burn elsewhere or an ambulance. If you need law enforcement from the city to county or state level just one phone call mobilizes a policeman, a deputy, a state trooper, firefighters and first responders from all areas of Summers County. If it’s not an emergency, non-emergency is also available 24/7 at 304-466-3333.
One of the major projects Lipscomb and all emergency responders are eager to get to is the West Virginia Statewide Interoperable Radio Network (SIRN) system. Law enforcement, EMS, state and national parks are all involved in the Enhanced 9-1-1 effort to upgrade communications in the county.
The digital programmable radios are a priority for many in the emergency management schematic. Meetings are being held every month to focus on what some feel is an extremely necessary improvement. Lipscomb said it’s in the hands of the state as Summers County waits for approval of the new radio tower contracts.
The state has to purchase the tower and have it installed. Lipscomb says it’s a process, and it’s like this for almost everything the state buys from tires to towers, involving requests for proposals, for contracts, time periods when they can buy things, and times when buying windows expire and things have to get started all over again with bid proposals.
When it comes to new communications towers and digital programmable radios, “survey flags are there” but purchasing goes through a process. The state is reviewing contracts but contracts haven’t been awarded yet.”
This process has been of keen interest to the emergency responders throughout the county. Meetings are ongoing to get the wheels moving as quickly as possible. The upcoming Enhanced 911 meeting is on the calendar for Monday, April 19, at 4:30 p.m.
