- November 4, 2024
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Information is coming in. In the darkened room, phones ring. Dozens of screens are flashing code and text. Maps track squad cars, fire and emergency medical personnel. Electronic pins pop up marking crisis locations. Computer aided dispatch equipment gathers and displays information already on record, such as multiple calls coming in about the same incident. Police are reporting activities. Timers are clocking time elapsed. Orders are being issued and confirmed, callers being assured.
This is the Public Safety Answering System at the Emergency Operations Center in Bunnell. This should be chaos. But it isn’t. The people standing guard over this are in control, talking, pushing buttons, ascertaining crisis levels, prioritizing. Their territory is all of Flagler County.
It’s a storm of information. In its eye is Communication Specialist First Class Megan Burton, Florida Sheriff Association Dispatcher of the Year, and the official honoree for the 2024 Palm Coast Holiday Boat Parade. With a stress level that rivals that of an air-traffic controller, Burton is a keystone in the structure that provides safety and well-being to the citizens of Flagler County.
Suspect a fire? Burton can have fire and water trucks on site within minutes. Did you just witness a crime? Before a caller even completes a sentence, Burton is already contacting police officers near the incident, and they are on the way. Burton and her colleagues are absorbing it all, sifting, triaging, alerting responders.
Working with her are a small group of specialists. One is a general supervisor. Another monitor’s traffic problems and police actions. Yet another oversees information-sharing with other agencies all over the country.
In another cube, a responder oversees fire-fighters and medical personnel.
The phrase “10/4” peppers each conversation as information is received, comprehended, and reconfirmed. It signifies “ok,” or “I understand.”
At any moment each dispatcher might have a dozen balls in the air.
Each of those spheres might be a human life or a life-changing trauma, or even simply a very scary moment. And without immediate professional intervention, a phone call away, each has the potential to become a disaster. Those possible catastrophes, thanks to the real-time work of this superbly professional team, routinely become miracles-in-progress.
A minute-by-minute account of an incident can be collated and printed out almost instantaneously and kept as a public record that the Center has collected and recorded.
“Our jobs are streamlined because of this technology,” Burton said.
The situations are endless. Three cars have collided on Interstate 95. A man is lying screaming on a sidewalk. Smoke is billowing out of an unoccupied house. A child has been hit by a car. A fist fight has broken out at a department store. A fire-fighter is having trouble locating a water hydrant.
Reaction time is instantaneous. Two seconds to answer a call, two seconds to dispatch the appropriate personnel, two seconds to confirm action being taken, two seconds to assure the caller that help is coming. Burton is advising, giving help, sending help, layers of action overlapping second to second.
Still not enough time? Burton and her colleagues are certified in Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, so lives can be saved over the telephone.
Often enough, Burton has done just that.
But when help arrives, the task is not over. She and other dispatchers continuously check status as events unfold. Personnel accountability reports are made every ten minutes reporting on-the-scene activity. Civil disruptions such as neighbor disputes require a check every fifteen minutes. Traffic stops are the most dangerous. For those, she checks every three minutes.
There is other work to be done as well: Training new personnel is constant, providing strategic observation and tracking their progress. Burton also monitors the automated reports from the License Plate Scanning Vehicles on county vehicles making their systematic way around streets of the county.
These highly complex electronic scanners provide rapid identification of vehicles of potential interest to officials – expired plates, crime suspects, even more benign violations such as trespass or unpaid parking tickets. Burton is continually checking the reports and either sends them on to be officially reported or deleting them as errors.
With a background in call center management and an intense interest in criminal justice, Burton used to live in Kalispell, Montana. One of her clients at a gym she managed was a police dispatcher who noticed her organizational and management skills. He told her that she had all the makings for dispatch work and suggested that perhaps she should consider that as a career. Burton took the advice and applied to the Kalispell, Montana, police department. She was hired and plunged into nine months of intensive on-the-job training at the state’s dispatch academy.
“It wasn’t easy,” she said. “It was like learning a new language, another set of living skills. It takes a good three years to really settle in.”
In 2015 Burton had the opportunity to move out of the frigid north and came to Palm Coast. The job of Sheriff’s Dispatcher came easily to her. But she notes that it is not so easily won or kept: “If we hire ten people for the job, maybe three people will actually make it."
“We are all A-Type personalities,” she said. “We’re perfect for multi- tasking under pressure. We like things to be in order, to make sense.”
The hardest cases to handle are calls from people who have done something destructive either to themselves or to someone else.
“A myriad of social skills come into play,” Burton said. “Some of these are beyond difficult, the ones you have a hard time getting out of your head.”
After her shift is over, dismissing the pressure is a must. “You cannot allow it to rule your life. One must be able to let it go and approach the next shift with a clear mind,” she said.
Not all the calls are difficult. The easiest are those that should have gone elsewhere like to the power company or the public library. One of her most interesting came from a child who dialed 911 to learn how to make the color red for a school project. After all, it was an emergency.
“I quickly Googled. We all Google a lot. And I know exactly how to make red now,” Burton said, laughing.
And the “Quiet” word? It’s a word that Burton and her colleagues do not like to hear. Because as soon as the room turns “quiet,” a fresh torrent of calls is sure to be expected, as many as 350 every 24 hours. And don’t worry. The Flagler County emergency dispatchers are among the best in the country. They have your back.
“Burton is simply the best," Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said. "I can’t think of a better way to give her work the attention it deserves as the honoree for this year’s Holiday Boat Parade. She is the link between the day- to-day lives of our citizens and the excellent support our resources and services can provide when those lives go awry.”
The phone rings again. Burton turns to answer. “This is 911. What is your emergency?” Her fingers are flying over her keyboards. More “10/4s” are exchanged. It’s been six seconds, and three fire trucks are on their way to a house in the C Section. Lights flash. Headphones burble with information and instructions. Burton confirms and reports that all pets and residents are out of the home. “Help is on the way,” she said.
All is well.
