Shown from left to right are Team Leader Sharon Barker, Erica Reid, Lewanna House, Adam Biggs, Patrick Austin, Jean Rogers.
A group of Hamilton County 9-1-1 telecommunicators will be deploying to Florida on Monday in response to a request for mutual aid assistance from that state. The group on its way to provide manpower to busy 911 centers who continue working hard, handling the response to the aftermath of Hurricane Irma.
This team will join a group of six telecommunicators from Georgia who have also been requested and both will then integrate with numerous Florida teams who have been on the ground since day one.
This response is part of an initiative known as TERT (Telecommunicator Emergency Response Taskforce) which was formally developed at the national level following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Its mission is to provide trained telecommunicators for mutual aid response in the aftermath of disasters.
TERT personnel must meet certain criteria, complete necessary training and be approved for deployment at several levels. Requests for TERT assistance are coordinated and authorized in roughly the same manner as any public safety resource request through State Emergency Operations Centers.
It is important to note that deployed telecommunicators are not “taking over” but helping shoulder the burden of the local 911 centers that have been working non-stop since the time of impact even while their homes, families and friends may have been impacted by the disaster.
Hamilton County 9-1-1 has approximately 30 TERT certified telecommunicators.