News Archives - Washtenaw Emergency Communications Consortium

Training Positions

artb — Thu, 26 May 2022 11:04:52 +0000

The POC has approved additional staff to be hired by the Washtenaw Emergency Communications Consortium to increase communications training. While Washtenaw County has robust communications equipment deployed throughout every public safety agency, training has always been identified by staff as lacking. The hiring of personnel primarily devoted to this function is critical in shoring up that known deficiency. The county can have the best equipment available, but if personnel are unable to use all the functionality of the equipment, its capabilities are diminished. Our plan is to have trainers available to go out to every agency to train their personnel on all the available functions of the radios. The training will be conducted in-house, as well as, the ability for on-line instruction. Training will be done on a continual basis to increase user competency. We hope to have people hired and in place by August 2022.

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Remote Radio Updating

artb — Mon, 09 May 2022 18:01:16 +0000

At the April 2022 meeting of the Project Oversite Committee funding was approved to create a network of public safety radio hotspots. These hotspots will enable radios to receive periodic updates to the firmware and programming. Hotspots will be located in various locations throughout Washtenaw County to serve our public safety partners. The current process for updating radios requires the Consortium to deploy personnel to each public safety location in order to complete the updates. This causes delays in updating the radios used by our members. The WECC in seeking solutions to this problem has developed permanent hotspots to address this problem. Once the project is completed, public safety agencies will either have a hotspot located at their station, or have one a short distance away. Personnel will only need to bring their radios within range of these Wi-Fi hotspots to receive a signal. Once the radio comes within range of the Wi-Fi hotspot, programming will automatically download to the radio to receive the update(s).

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Washtenaw Metro Dispatch Press Release

artb — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 12:44:18 +0000

Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office
Text-to-9-1-1 Media Release
9-1-1: Call if You Can, Text if You Can’t
Voice Calls to 9-1-1 Are Still the Best and Fastest Way to Contact 9-1-1

Sheriff Jerry L. Clayton is pleased to inform the public that The Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office Metro Dispatch Center in partnership with all Washtenaw County 911 centers and police agencies has initiated Text-to-9-1-1 service for all cities/jurisdictions in Washtenaw County. The system integration of this important initiative is funded by the Emergency Communication Mileage passed by the voters in Washtenaw County.
Dispatch center officials have been developing operational protocols for months and began testing the program in early November 2021. Wireless customers can now send a text to 9-1-1 in an emergency. Due to inherent delays in Short Message Service (SMS) communications, Text-to-911 should only be used in an emergency situation when placing a call is not possible. For instance, if the caller is deaf, hard-of-hearing, speech impaired, or when speaking out loud would put the caller in danger. When seconds matter, a voice call to 9-1-1 is the best and fastest way for the 9-1-1 call taker to receive and deliver life-saving information. A text message may take longer.
“We are pleased to be able to offer this service to our residents and visitors of Washtenaw County. It is an important life-saving tool that provides another method of contacting 9-1-1 for emergency response by law enforcement, fire and medical services.” – Rochelle Noonan, Washtenaw County Emergency Services Director
If there is an emergency and you are unable to make a call, remember these steps:
• Don’t text and drive.
• Enter the numbers 911 in the “To” field – do not use dashes.
• Text in simple words – do not use abbreviations or slang.
• Be prepared to answer questions and follow instructions from the 9-1-1 call taker.
• Do not delete the message or turn off your phone until the 9-1-1 call taker concludes the conversation.
Don’t Abuse 9-1-1 – Text-to-9-1-1 service is ONLY for emergencies.
• It is a crime to text or call 9-1-1 with a false report.
The Text-to-911 service will have some challenges.
• A text or data plan is required to place a Text-to-9-1-1.
• As with all text messages, messages to 9-1-1 may take longer to receive, may get out of order, or may not be received at all.
• If you do not receive a text response from 9-1-1, try to contact 9-1-1 another way.
• Photos and videos cannot be sent to 9-1-1 at this time.
• Text-to-9-1-1 cannot include more than one person. Do not send your emergency text to anyone other than 9-1-1.
• Voice Calls to 9-1-1 Are Still the Best and Fastest Way to Contact 9-1-1.
Text-to-9-1-1 service is not available everywhere in Michigan and the United States. If you try to text-to-9-1-1 and the service is not available, you will receive a bounce back message advising you to make a voice call to 9-1-1.
Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office
Text-to-9-1-1 Media Release
Participating Washtenaw County agencies/police jurisdictions:
• Ann Arbor Police
• Chelsea Police
• Department of Natural Resources
• Eastern Michigan University Police
• Huron Clinton Metroparks Authority
• Huron Valley Ambulance (Medical and Fire Dispatch Services)
• Michigan State Police
• Milan Police
• Northfield Township Police
• Saline Police
• Pittsfield Township Police
• University of Michigan Police
• Washtenaw Community College Police
• Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office
• Ypsilanti Police
For more information you may contact your local dispatch center administration. Inquiries specific to Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office Metro Dispatch Center, you may contact Dispatch Operations Manager Jeff Poinier at poinierj@washtenaw.org or (734) 222-3927.

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Countywide Voice Recorder

artb — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 11:05:50 +0000

In 2021 the Project Oversite Committee approved the purchase of a countywide voice recorder for the new Metro Dispatch location. The recorder will service all public safety answering points (PSAP’s) located within Washtenaw County. Radio transmissions and 911/administrative telephone recordings will be able to integrated together to provide a complete picture of any incident. Installation of the recorder is scheduled for the third week of October 2021. For more information the recorder, click on the link to Nice recording solutions below.

https://www.nice.com/protecting/public-safety/nice-audio-recording-solution/

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July 2021 911 Installation Update

artb — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 11:56:26 +0000

The Washtenaw County 911 project has been progressing towards the final 911 installation with the University of Michigan Department of Public Safety. Currently, technicians working in concert with U of M staff, are wiring the public safety building to support the next generation 911 initiative. Due to the complex environment of the U of M campus this has been done methodically to insure the successful completion of the project. At this time there are no hard timelines when the campus will be operating on the new 911 system, due to connectivity and training issues involved on a project of this magnitude. However, we are hopeful that it will be completed sometime in September. As more information becomes available, updates will be posted.

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911 Update September 2020

artb — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 11:38:27 +0000

After delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Washtenaw County Communication Consortium has resumed the Next Generation 911 project this month. A major milestone was reached when the Huron Valley Ambulance dispatch center was brought on line with the Solocom NG-911 equipment. Although HVA is a secondary public safety answering point, this was a major accomplishment by our 911 vendor. HVA is a critical piece of public safety, serving the entire Washtenaw County community. HVA is responsible for dispatch services for most fire departments in our county. Look for updates in the future as we prepare for the final dispatch center to be brought on line; the University of Michigan Public Safety Department.

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Washtenaw County Emergency Notification Alerts

artb — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 14:36:51 +0000

In August, Washtenaw County launched a new emergency alert notification system purchased from Everbridge. The new system replaces Nixle, which Washtenaw used in the past for notifications. The new system will be available to all jurisdictions throughout Washtenaw County in the future. For now, the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s office and Ann Arbor will begin the roll out. The new system will allow residents to decide what type of alerts they are interested in receiving, along with when they want to have the message sent. To register for an account, sign up at washtenaw.org/alerts. The system was purchased through funding provided by the Washtenaw County communications millage.

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911 Installation Update

artb — Tue, 09 Jun 2020 14:01:36 +0000

Now that the COVID-19 restrictions are starting to expire, our 911 vendor is planning to schedule the remaining installations. The Next Generation 911 installation is slated to begin in June 2020 at Huron Valley Ambulance. The University of Michigan Department of Public Safety will then follow, tentatively scheduled for installation in late July of 2020.

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911 Update March 2020

artb — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 16:44:09 +0000

March 2020 Update

Since December, 2019, the county-wide 911 project has added two more agencies – Eastern Michigan University and Washtenaw County Metro Dispatch. Metro Dispatch (https://www.washtenaw.org/1262/911-Dispatch) is the largest 911 center, serving many of the police agencies in Washtenaw County including: Ann Arbor Police, Ypsilanti Police, Washtenaw County Sheriff, Pittsfield Township Police, Northfield Township Police, Huron Area Metro Parks Police, Department of Natural Resources, and the Michigan State Police. Metro Dispatch was the largest and most complex center to come online to date, and as such, there were some challenges that needed to be overcome. During the implementation process, the non-emergency lines at Metro Dispatch went down several times both during and after the installation of the new 911 equipment.

Installation Challenges

Business line outages at Metro Dispatch had no effect on 911 calls and were immediately addressed by the 911 vendor and the business line vendor. In addition, a message was delivered through the county’s mass communication platform, Nixle, to inform the public of the outages. Rest assured, if the 911 lines were to go down at any dispatch center in the county, there are fail-safe processes in place to address the outages; the new 911 system calls would either be directed to other dispatch centers to answer until such time as the affected dispatch center can get back up and running, or they would move to the county backup center.

COVID 19 Delays

Because of COVID-19, this county-wide 911 project is now on hold. Access to buildings are limited to protect employees from unnecessary exposures. As a result, the decision has been made to suspend in-person meetings and site preparations for the 911 implementations at HVA and the University of Michigan.

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Ann Arbor Welding Supply Fire – Pittsfield Twp. Michigan

artb — Mon, 02 Apr 2018 16:20:47 +0000

Ann Arbor Welding Supply Fire – Pittsfield Twp. Michigan

On 4/11/2019 at approximately 12:30pm. the Pittsfield Twp. Fire Department responded to a reported explosion at Ann Arbor Welding Supply, located in the 4800 block of Carpenter Road. The Fire Department arrived at the scene to find heavy smoke and explosions heard coming from the back of the building. A 2000-gallon propane tank was found to be on fire, along with several smaller propane, butane and acetylene tanks. Given the fact that there were unexploded tanks in close proximately, an evacuation order was given for the surrounding businesses and residences. Mutual aid was requested by Pittsfield FD to assist them with the fire and evacuation. Ann Arbor City Fire, Ann Arbor Twp. Fire, Ypsilanti Twp. Fire, Huron Valley Ambulance, Washtenaw County Haz-Mat Team, and the Western Wayne Haz-Mat team responded to the request. The Pittsfield Twp. Police Department and Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office assisted with evacuations and traffic control. Pittsfield Twp. Fire Department set up a command post and staging area to coordinate with incoming resources. The Haz-Mat teams set up equipment to monitor the air, and used a drone to access conditions inside the “hot zone”. Once the fire was under control, the decision was made to reduce the area of evacuation to a limited zone around the area of the building.

As a result of this incident, an after-action review was performed concerning overall response of all emergency services at the scene. One of the biggest takeaways from the debriefing process involved communications. Even though the 800 MHz radio system was capable of interoperability between all the responding departments, it was not effectively utilized for that purpose; fire did not know what police were doing, and police did not know what fire was doing. Compounding the problem, police personnel were often communicating by cellular phone, instead of using their radios that allow everyone else to hear what was communicated.

Out of the debriefing, Consortium staff conducted additional radio training with an emphasis on utilizing the full interoperable capabilities of the radio system. Staff reinforced that all departments could have been in better communication by all units using one radio talkgroup, or police and fire using separate radio talkgroups. The key point was for the departments involved to let each other know what radio talkgroup they would be using or have the incident commander assign radio talkgroups; both police and fire could then set their radios to scan the other talkgroup so they would all know what the other was doing. It was also determined that the use of cellular phones during large-scale emergency responses was an ineffective and unreliable method of communications, especially for information that could have been broadcast for others to hear. Washtenaw Emergency Communications Consortium staff continues to strive for the increased, primary usage of the full capabilities that our interoperable radio system supports.

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