Roger Knox - Vernon Morning Star Published: February 13, 2009 4:00 PM
Starbucks coffee firmly in hand, Jen Tremblay sits down at a desk in the non-descript, second-floor North Kelowna office, checks her four computer screens in front of her and prepares for a busy Friday night at work. Tremblay is a dispatcher at the RCMP’s South East operational communications centre, the place where after-hours calls from 50 detachments in the B.C. southern Interior and Kootenays come in, along with 9-1-1 emergency calls. On this snowy, winter evening, Tremblay has been assigned the Vernon rural desk, which includes Greater Vernon, Armstrong, Enderby, Salmon Arm, Sicamous, and Lumby. “Vernon is always busy,” smiles Tremblay, a dispatcher for five years. “It could be a fast night.”
Indeed, within the first half-hour of her 12-hour shift, and with a reporter listening to the calls coming in, Tremblay deals with calls about a truck in a Revelstoke lake; two motor vehicle accidents in Vernon; two threat complaints; a complaint of kids throwing snowballs; an accident that doesn’t require ambulance assistance outside of Lumby; and a member of the Keremeos Citizens On Patrol volunteer group checking in. Calls come into the operations centre at a rate of every 45 seconds, so there’s not much early opportunity for Tremblay to interact with co-workers. Surrounding Tremblay in her portion of the centre are dispatchers tuned into the East and West Kootenays, Kelowna city and Kelowna rural; Kamloops city and Kamloops rural.
The Kelowna-based operations centre covers cities along the Trans-Canada Highway from Lytton in the west to Golden in the east; western communities such as Clinton, Lillooett, Princeton and Keremeos; eastern centres like Invermere, Cranbrook and Fernie, and south through the Okanagan down to the U.S. border past Osoyoos. A total of 105 full-time staff members and 30-to-40 part-timers handle emergency and non-emergency calls from an area than has 670,000 people, and 1,000 RCMP members. “Every year, we get 600,000 calls here at the centre,” said Colleen Quinlan, an administrative manager at the centre, who has been dispatching calls for nearly 28 years. “We are hoping to add about 16 more positions.” Of those calls, 200,000 are 9-1-1 calls. The 9-1-1 phones at the centre ring every 14 seconds, and 90 per cent of those calls are answered in 10 seconds or less. “Anyone who calls 9-1-1 gets to here,” said Quinlan, pointing to a desk area manned by two operators, who get a display as to where the call is coming from. “They’ll ask the caller if they require police, fire or ambulance.” If the caller requires police assistance, the call will be sent over to one of the dispatchers in the centre. Ambulance calls are sent to a call centre in Kamloops, and fire calls are put over to the appropriate fire dispatch.
It is important for all callers to remember that 9-1-1 is an emergency number. “Use common sense,” advises Quinlan. “Don’t call 9-1-1 to find out road conditions. The number is for emergencies, threat to life or to report a crime in progress. To help dispatch and police with information, think like a realtor. “Location, location, location,” said Staff-Sgt. Troy Gross, manager of the operations centre. “If you don’t know where the crime is, we can’t be there. It’s extremely important that we know where the crime or emergency is. A lot of people who call us don’t know where they are and that slows down the information gathering process.” When an RCMP detachment closes for the day, or on weekends, dial the non-emergency number and you’ll reach Kelowna. You will be asked by a dispatcher what’s the nature of your call. If you get put on hold, it means there’s a higher priority call ahead of you. Quinlan, who worked the night of the Mindy Tran kidnapping in Rutland, and the Mount Boucherie fire, two of the more high profile calls during her career, says callers should be patient if put on hold. “Don’t hang up,” she said. “We’ll get to your call as quick as possible, and it’s a lot faster to wait than to hang up and call again.”Every call into the centre, be it 9-1-1 or emergency, is recorded and kept on file for two years.
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