JAY – Jay Police Department and the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department have completed an agreement to provide backup emergency dispatch services for each other if one of the communication operations goes down during a disaster.
Franklin County Sheriff Dennis Pike and Jay Police Chief Larry White Sr. had been working on the mutual aid agreement long before Hurricane Katrina struck Southern states. Neither of the departments had a backup plan if dispatch operations went down.
“We can’t give them full service, but we could manage a Band-Aid until things get fixed,” White said Wednesday.
If the Franklin County dispatch service in Farmington goes down, a code would be punched in and the calls would be redirected to Jay’s 911 system. If Jay’s system goes down, those calls would go to the Sheriff’s Department.
Dispatchers from whatever department is down would be sent to the office of the system that is running to provide additional staffing, both Pike and White said Wednesday.
“Hopefully, the bottom line is we’ll never have to use this,” Pike said.
The Sheriff’s Department provides night and weekend dispatch coverage to Farmington.
Police Department and dispatch services to Wilton and Rangeley police departments.
The county’s department also is the public safety answering point where 911 calls come into the system and dispatchers direct them to the appropriate emergency service. They also switch over 911 calls that come in from the Jay area to the Jay Police Department, which then directs them to appropriate emergency services.
It’s a “win-win situation” for both departments, White said of the mutual aid agreement.
Jay selectmen approved the arrangement Monday.
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