Moberly - Randolph County Joint Communications 911 Upgrade
Moberly - Randolph County, MO, June 24, 2005

The Moberly Police Department has brought new technology to the forefront of emergency services with the installation of the Power 911 system.

The Power 911 system is a computer based phone answering, dispatching and county-wide mapping system developed and marketed by Positron Public Safety Systems Corporation based in Austin, TX.

Moberly Police Chief Mike Garbulski and Randolph County Sheriff Mark Nichols have been working together in a joint effort on this communication upgrade. In addition, the Moberly Mayor and City Council, the Randolph County Commissioners and the Randolph County 911 Coordinator, Joan Joseph, assisted greatly in allowing this communication upgrade to move forward. The new Power 911 system, combined with the Moberly – Randolph County Joint Communications Center, will provide streamlined call handling and dispatching to decrease response times to emergency situations.

In order to facilitate this implementation, Special Services Technicians from Southwestern Bell Corporation (SBC) have been installing new computer hardware, software and cabling over the last two weeks in preparation for the Power 911 system.

The implementation of the Power 911 system, Phase 0, will now permit the Moberly – Randolph County Joint Communications 911 Center to request Phase 1 and Phase 2 capabilities. The upcoming phases will allow wireless 911 calls to be identified with the location of the cellular tower and the call back number, and eventually the actual location of the cellular phone, based on latitude and longitude, that will be identified on the county mapping. This in turn will provide for response by emergency services even if the caller can not speak or give their actual location.

In addition, the new system will provide the capability to track emergency units via Global Positioning System (GPS). GPS tracking will permit Joint Communications Operators the ability to see where the closest unit or units are in relation to the call or incident. This in turn will provide a more efficient response by dispatching the closest unit or units.

All Joint Communications operators at the Moberly Police Department received training on the new system on Wednesday, June 8. System Administrators, who will be responsible for generating status reports concerning 911 calls, received separate training on June 9.

The Power 911 system was initially set to go on-line on Friday, June 10, 2005. In order to achieve this goal, the technicians worked from early Thursday morning until 1:30am on Friday to bring the system on line. The system was brought up and a live test run was made. After the successful test run, the system was brought back down for the clean-up of wiring and minute software upgrades. After the software upgrades were complete, the system was brought on line again and has been completely operational since that time.

The two entities in this project, Positron and SBC, worked tirelessly together. From Positron, thanks go to Valorie Taylor – Deployment Manager, Beverly Slocum – Trainer and Clay McIntyre – Field Technician.

From Southwestern Bell Corporation, thanks go to Johnny Harden – Special Services Manager, Justin Vaughn – Senior Wireless Project Manager, Leland Kelley – Customer Services Technician and Mike Newman – Special Services Technician.

From the Moberly Police Department, thanks go to Kathy Hellensmith – Information Technology Administrator.

A special thank you goes to Jeff Strodman and Rick Grisolano – Special Services Technicians for SBC. These two individuals went above and beyond what was expected of them to implement this system.

The Power 911 System will be a tremendous asset to the citizens of Moberly and Randolph County, as well as a superb tool for all emergency services.

Sgt. Kevin Palmatory
Public Information Officer
Moberly Police Department