Putting a shirt on 911 effort

By Barry Porterfield
Staff Writer

July 26, 2008 12:56 am

— A quick glance at a shirt could be just the trick when it comes to letting Garvin County residents know the person approaching their house is actually part of a current mapping effort for a future 911 emergency telephone system.
The idea of creating some specialty T-shirts to also help with the work involved in mapping the county was offered earlier this week by the county’s 911 coordinator, Diann Williams.
According to Williams, the work is continuing to move forward as T-shirts identifying the 911 workers could help residents identify them as they approach rural residences.
“I can tell we startle them when we come up to them,” Williams said about the residents.
“When we get close enough to them it’s OK. A T-shirt would help let them know who we are and why we’re there.”
For these reasons the 911 coordinator is planning to get the shirts made that displays the Garvin County 911 logo.
Earlier this month separate one-man crews with GeoComm, the contractor working on the project, have been driving parts of the county to gather Global Positioning System (GPS) data needed for the future countywide 911 system.
Williams, who has at times accompanied one of the workers, said most of the response from area residents has been positive with the GPS readings and surveys given to or left for the residents themselves.
Still, others have not been so pleasant.
“We had one guy who ran us off his property,” she said.
The GPS work is expected to continue through late September or early October.
No progress has been reported on a recent idea that could provide the first ever home of the future 911 communications center in this county.
Members of a 911 committee have recommended to county commissioners they eventually should try and acquire the building formerly housing a radio station just southwest of Pauls Valley.
The recommendation suggests the county officials work toward making the former radio station on Airline Road and the 9 1/2 acres surrounding it the place for the center overseeing the 911 operations for the countywide system.
A committee member has said the building, reported to be about 2,200 square feet in size, easily meets the needs of a 911 center.