A group of Hamilton County 911 telecommunicators were deploying to Naples, Fla., on Friday in response to a request for mutual aid assistance after the state was hit hard by Hurricane Ian. The six telecommunicators from Hamilton County 911 will be joined by 16 other telecommunicators from other counties in Tennessee.
All of these telecommunicators provide extra staffing to busy 911 centers that continue working hard, handling the response to the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.
They will integrate with numerous Florida teams who have been on the ground since day one. The deployment of the Hamilton County team is expected to last 14 days.
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.
Officials said, "It is important to note that deployed telecommunicators are not 'taking over' but helping shoulder the burden of the local 911 centers who 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 911 has approximately 30 TERT certified telecommunicators.