It wasn’t your typical ribbon-cutting ceremony: In order to mark the grand opening of the McAllen Fire Department’s Emergency Communications Center on Thursday, together the fire chief, city staff and dispatchers ceremoniously disconnected and reconnected a large industrial electricity plug.
The center has been open since July 2, 2018, marking the first time since May 2012 that calls for fire service are routed directly from the city’s public safety answering point (PSAP), housed at the McAllen Police Department, to the city’s central fire station on North 21st Street.
Over the past five years, the city contracted with the city of Pharr for fire dispatch services, a contract that was authorized with the belief that Pharr’s emergency communications center would one day become regionalized with the county’s other cities, a vision that never panned out.