It’s the middle of the night, and the phone keeps ringing. At the Presque Isle County Sheriff’s Office, 911 dispatchers on the overnight shift gaze at glowing screens in a dark room, asking questions of the frazzled people on the other end of the line.
At 2 a.m. on Thursday of National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, it’s business as usual, calls coming in and help going out while dispatchers juggle a dozen jobs at once.
“A dispatcher answers the call,” said Tess Alder, dispatcher and corrections officer for the county. “That’s the most simple way to put it.”
Alder and Scott Arkwood, her partner for the night, are two of the dozen dispatchers/corrections officers who tend the county’s phones, where 600 emergency calls land most months.