FORT EUSTIS, Va. –
A new enhanced 911, or E-911, dispatch center was stood up at building 648 at Fort Eustis and became the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), capturing all landline based E-911 calls on post as of Oct. 29.
The new dispatch center will allow first responders to provide better response times to emergency situations on the installation.
Prior to the upgrade, a fire dispatcher answered a 911 call and dispatched the needed fire, medical or police units to respond, providing an address with the building number to the responding team. The location and number information were not available along with mapping for each identified call.
The number information is needed at the PSAP to find the caller's exact location and any extra information about the caller that may have been stored in the database, and to have a callback number in case the call is disconnected.
The new E-911 system allows the dispatcher to receive Automatic Location Information and Automatic Number Information via digital mapping systems MapStar and Vesta, and pinpoint the caller's location.
The project included the installation of Centralized Automatic Message Accounting trunks, which allow commercial ANI and ALI to be routed through the Fort Eustis E-911 system.
With the addition of the CAMA circuits, all wired phones, including government, commercial and housing lines at Fort Eustis, are now captured E-911 calls. All wireless calls will continue to be routed through the Newport News E-911 call center.
For more information, contact Terry L. Anderson at 878-3852 or Sandra Culver at 878-1008.