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The Emergency Communications Center moved to the new Fredericksburg Police headquarters building yesterday. ROBERT A. MARTIN/THE FREE LANCE-STAR View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

911 center has new home

911 center is first to move to new police headquarters

BY EMILY BATTLE

Date published: 7/11/2007

BY EMILY BATTLE

Fredericksburg police hope you didn't notice, but while many of you were either sleeping or starting your commute north yesterday, the city's 911 nerve center moved across town.

The intricately choreographed move of the emergency communications center was the first step in transferring the police department from the downtown headquarters it has occupied since 1978 to a new, $12.4 million building on Cowan Boulevard.

Planning for the move began as soon as construction on the building started in late 2005, said 911 Communications Manager Lisa McMahon.

"Other offices can pack up their stuff and have the movers come and move it. That's not the case with us," she said in an interview in May.

That's because while it moves, the center has to keep working without dropping a call.

As equipment gets taken offline to be moved, some other system has to take its place temporarily.

So starting at 2 a.m. yesterday, communications officers were taking call information on paper forms--something they haven't done since the early 1990s--while their computer-aided dispatch system was down.

For the past several days, police and members of other city departments have worked through a color-coded schedule that told them when to turn off, pack up and re-install each piece of equipment.

The goal was to make the move seamless, so that members of the public and officers in the field, who depend on the communications center to dispatch them to calls, wouldn't be left without this support system.

"Hopefully no one will even know it's happening," McMahon said in May.

At 5:30 a.m. yesterday, she and several others involved in the move gathered to make sure everybody was ready to switch the phone lines from the old building to the new one.

Some of the people involved had been working through the night, moving 911 consoles and other equipment.

When all parties said "Go," the 911 lines were switched from the old to the new headquarters just before 6 a.m.

Capt. Waverly Musselman, who was in charge of coordinating the move, pulled out his cell phone, dialed a test call and asked which 911 center he had reached.

"I have the new 911 center," he reported. "We're good."

Emily Battle: 540/374-5413
Email: ebattle@freelancestar.com

Fredericksburg's new police communications center is a drastic improvement over the old one. At 35,000 square feet, it's able to hold all three of the police divisions--patrol, detectives and support services--for the first time in nearly 30 years. In the old building, the 911 server--the electronic brains of the emergency call center--had a makeshift home in a room that used to be a coffee nook. By 9 a.m. yesterday, the server was installed in a room that was made for it. The new building has other advantages as well. Instead of having to find parking along crowded downtown streets, employees now have a secured lot with plenty of space behind the building. There are spaces for the public in front of the building. Police have new locker rooms, more meeting space and a bigger space to store evidence. Communications officers have a spacious, modern room, compared to their cramped quarters at the old building. By the end of today, the rest of the offices in the old building should have moved out. And tomorrow morning, officers will report for their first roll-call in their new home.

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Date published: 7/11/2007

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