HigherGround customer, Minneapolis 911 Center, wins national call center award

PRLog (Press Release) – May 06, 2008 – LOS ANGELES - The Minneapolis 911 center has been awarded the “2008 911 Outstanding Call Center Award,” a national award presented by the E9-1-1 Institute in Washington, D.C. The Minneapolis center was honored for its work during the collapse of the I-35W Bridge.

The Minneapolis 911 center was a key part of the emergency response to the bridge collapse. During the first two hours after the collapse, the center received 505 emergency calls, including 51 from the scene of the bridge collapse. Although this was three times the normal call volume, the 911 center was able to communicate seamlessly with emergency organizations from the City of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, responding with remarkable speed and professionalism.

When the bridge collapsed at 6 p.m. on Aug. 1, 2007, there were 13 operators and dispatchers on duty in the 911 center. Following the collapse, many off-duty employees came back to work to help. As the emergency response unfolded at the bridge scene, the 911 center helped process 113,000 radio transmissions on the regional 800 MHz trunked radio system that connected emergency responders. Even though there were tens of thousands of transmissions, only one high-priority transmission received a busy signal in the first six hours of the incident.

The 911 center used HigherGround’s Capture-911 digital voice recording solution to record each of the incoming telephone calls as well as the radio transmissions. “We did not lose one single recording, even with the increased volume we experienced,” said Tom Donohoe, Assistant Director of the Emergency Communications Center. “Selected recordings are now being used to recreate the incident in our presentations at APCO & NENA conferences.”

“When you think of emergency responders, you often think of the police officer or the firefighter on the scene,” said City Council Member Don Samuels, who chairs the council’s Public Safety and Regulatory Services Committee. “But our 911 center and staff are the invisible backbone of public safety. Our residents know that there’s one place they can always turn in an emergency, and that’s 911. Reliable service is easy to take for granted, and that’s why it’s rewarding to see our dependable 911 staff get the national recognition they deserve.”

“This is a real honor, to be recognized among the thousands of 911 centers around the country,” said John Dejung, director of the Minneapolis 911 center. “Our staff knows that the work they do matters every day. It’s rarely an easy job, but playing a key role in protecting the public, and even saving lives, is the reason our people take on the challenge. It’s humbling to be chosen for this significant award, but I also know our people deserve it for the remarkable work they do.”