Macon Police Department Renovates E-911 Center

MACON, Georgia (41 NBC/WMGT) – Friday caps National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week across the country. And it couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time.

When answering and responding to emergency calls, timing is everything. The quicker…the better.
The Macon Police Department celebrated this week by inviting media into it’s newly renovated E 911 center to show how new technology is making a change.

Almost a year ago to the day, the Macon Police Department started to renovate its E-911 center. Everything was upgraded from the computer monitors down to chairs and lighting.

Director of the Macon – Bibb County 911 center, Lieutenant A.C. Grinstead toured the media through the area and also explained what the new center means.

“This is where everything happens this is the action place,” Grinstead said. “Right now we’re still kind of disjointed with the Sheriff’s Office soon we’ll be coming together, we got really great things happening here in Macon and Bibb County and it’s gonna be better.”

It took almost a year for the employees to get back into the center. The word of the day was efficiency. How could the Macon Police Department and Bibb County Government make the 12 hour shifts for Communications Officers run more smoothly and effectively?

The new center includes cabinets that can hold 4 CPUs, new flooring, and headsets that are wireless allowing communications officers to move around freely.

“They had to physically stretch over there or leave their work station,” Grinstead said. “Now with their headset on they never miss a beat.”

Officials in Bibb County estimate the cost of the renovations to be close to $500,000.

Trevor McHolmes has worked for the center for four years. The center, paid for with Bibb County 911 funding, will be the epicenter for 911 calls when the Macon – Bibb County consolidation efforts take place later on this year.

“You will still have aspects of dispatch that will be housed near the LEC because of proximity which will be necessary, ” McHolmes told 41 NBC. “Here at the 911 center, we’ll be the main communications hub and that will be very important to have the dispatch centralized here.”

McHolmes continued to tell 41 NBC that having the new upgraded center will make things more efficient,
upgrading equipment with technology means speed and that could be the difference between life and death.