National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week (NPSTW) – the week set aside to honor those emergency dispatchers who have answered the calls. We don’t always think about the 911 heroes when the gentle April showers start falling, and we look forward to the May flowers those showers will bring. That is, unless the showers come in the form of excessive rainfall, plummeting to the ground in a short period of time, causing torrential flooding across the jurisdictional boundaries of your public safety response areas. When that happens, it causes 911 overload on your phone system, it causes sheer panic in the citizen population that you serve, and it causes hours of unanswered worry while you wonder how YOUR family is doing.
And still, as the rain falls, you answer the next call, and the next, and the next. Knowing that the flooding could be impacting neighborhoods where your friends and loved ones live, you stay plugged into your phones, you remain vigilant to the radio traffic, and you do your job and hope that the next shift dispatcher can get to work so you can go home. Because you know if they cannot, you will stay, and answer the next call, and the next. Dispatching resources to the calls you take, as part of the public safety team that keeps the citizens and responders safe. You remain because while you have this event, life still continues on in your jurisdiction. Life that involves fires, crimes, and medical emergencies. Life that has nothing to do with those April showers.
You are the unsung heroes. You have many names, the heroes under the headset, the first, First responder, the voice in the dark – giving hope to those in need. Our “rain” may take many forms in public safety. We plan for disasters; we practice scenarios for active assailants, mass causality incidents, and depending on where you are, you may even practice weather related disasters involving rain. The “rain” for 911 is whatever lights up our phones for hours or sends our responders into danger for a disastrous event. Many true weather-related events (but not all!) are easier to see coming, because of the modern technology we have, so we can prepare. Yet, some of us may never face a weather disaster during our careers, and others may find themselves facing them multiple times throughout their tenure. Statistically speaking, the NOAA’s National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI) reported that in 2024 there were 27 individual weather and climate disasters causing 568 fatalities and $1 billion in damages. But, I bet you know of more than 27 that just did not reach the level of National attention. Those floods that washed through your community, lighting up your phones, the ones that didn’t make National news, that still caused great heartache and worry in your communities. The Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP) statistics site 166 people in the US died by floods in 2024 and yet they acknowledge that there may be “many more (deaths) in other smaller floods”. Yes… you know, there were many more than just 27.
Well, wasn’t this an uplifting article! Why, you may ask, is this a topic? It’s because of you, the 911 calltakers, dispatchers, and leaders who remain by the phone to answer those calls for help. All across the country, dispatchers respond to the call, in every PSAP, with each call that is answered and dispatched, 911 personnel are making a difference. The one thing that I ask of you to always remember during this month and every month, is that you are not, “just” a dispatcher. When you answer that phone and the caller says, I want to speak to an officer… a paramedic… a firefighter… are YOU a “fill in the blank”? The temptation is to answer, “No, I’m just a dispatcher” but I challenge you to remember… You are not JUST A. You ARE a dispatcher. You must have superior multi-tasking skills, and be able to answer the phone and start typing. You must have the ability to split your listening skills between your caller, the radio, and sometimes what is going on in the rest of the room. You must be able to listen to your caller, answer your radio, and still acknowledge what someone said to you in the room. You must be able to listen to your caller, ask questions, and process the answers while monitoring radio traffic and dispatching information. You must be able to switch rapidly between these tasks, so quickly that the average person watching you thinks that you are multi-tasking, meaning that you are doing these tasks simultaneously instead of switch-tasking, switching between different tasks in rapid succession. You are a crucial connection for survival when sending help to those in need. A critical link to the survival of an officer down. You are an imperative ally to the healthy mental state of you and your peers who go through the disaster when April showers turn into something more! So the next time someone asks you if you are a “fill in the blank”? Answer with pride, “No I, AM a dispatcher, would you like to speak to a “fill in the blank”?
Because you matter and what you do every day makes a difference in the life of others. Remember to take care of yourselves. There are resources available to keep you healthy both physically and mentally; Equature has worked with 911TI, Jim Marshall LLC, and Adam Timm with The Healthy Dispatcher and has courses available in the Apprentice portal that focus on these topics. No longer do you have to ignore the calls that leave you sleepless because someone tells you to suck-it up! YOU do make a difference; YOU are a first responder; YOU are a dispatcher; YOU matter.
Thank you, for answering the call, we at Equature support you, we honor you, and we hope you have a great celebration of National Public Safety Telecommunications Week, one that goes on beyond April and honors you every month of the year.
The opinions expressed in this article are that of the author, Cherie Bartram, and supported by Equature. If you have any questions or comments, please contact Cherie directly at cbartram@equature.com.
Resources for you:
Solutions: Dispatcher Education and Training | Equature | Safety Made Simple
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