MADISON PARISH E-911 DISPATCHER LAWANDA YOUNG logs in calls on her first day of using the new 911 dispatch system Wednesday at the Madison Parish Jail. Maj. Mike Williamson reviews a file in the background.(The Vicksburg Post/MELANIE DUNCAN)

[04/18/02]TALLULAH It took less than a day for Madison Parish’s new E-911 equipment to demonstrate one of its biggest advantages.

The system, like an advanced caller-ID terminal, went live at 10 a.m. Tuesday in the Madison Parish Jail, E-911 director Cynthia Machen said. Just over 10 hours later, at 8:16 p.m., the system logged a call that lasted for less than one ring, she said.

That connection, though, was long enough for the system to capture and display the caller’s address, she said. As it turned out, the call was cut short because the phone at the caller’s house was jerked from the wall in a domestic disturbance, said Maj. Mike Williamson of the Madison Parish Sheriff’s Department.

“Without the system all we would’ve had was a hang-up call,” Williamson said, “and what’s a hang-up call to us?”

Instead, the E-911 equipment allowed Deputy Patricia Hendrix, who was on duty to answer calls at the time, to pass the address on to the Sheriff’s Department dispatcher, in the next room, Williamson said. Two sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the home, about three miles west of town on U.S. 80, where they found a teen-ager breaking windows with a machete, he said.

The teen was arrested, charged with simple criminal damage to property and held in the jail most of the night, Williamson said. He was free on bond Wednesday, Williamson said.

Williamson would not speculate on how dangerous the situation might have been had it happened before Tallulah’s long-awaited E-911 system was switched on. “It could’ve escalated,” he said.

Before Tuesday morning, 911 could be dialed in Madison Parish, but “wired phone” calls were routed to the Tallulah Police Department, Machen said, adding that “it was nothing more than the convenience of dialing three numbers instead of seven.” Cell phone calls were answered at the sheriff’s department.

Dispatchers would relay information for ambulance and fire-department calls to the appropriate places, Machen said.

Under the enhanced system, computers display information about the caller’s location sometimes just the name and address, but often more details such as data on a patient at the address with a chronic illness or hazardous chemicals stored at a site.

Calls to the new E-911 center, in its newly remodeled room in the jail in Tallulah, must also be transferred before an actual dispatch call is made to an officer in the field, Machen said. But transfers may be made with one button.

The system is being paid for from telephone-bill surcharges collected since 1992, and by the Sheriff’s Department. The monthly surcharges are 55 cents per residential line and $1.43 per business line. The E-911 organization has accumulated about $200,000, Machen said.

About $150,000 of that amount will be a down-payment on the new equipment, which is being financed through a lease-purchase agreement, Machen said.

The lease-purchase agreement also includes a monthly payment of about $1,600, part of the center’s total monthly expenses of about $5,000, Machen said. Those expenses include Machen’s salary of about $1,300 and general office expenses of about $1,000, but do not include the roughly $1,700-per-month salaries for the four dispatchers that have been hired by E-911, she said.

The monthly expenses are roughly being covered by the receipts that continue to come in from phone surcharges, Machen said. The Madison Parish Sheriff’s Department is paying the dispatcher salaries for now, Sheriff Larry Cox said.

After July 1, the Tallulah City Council and the Madison Parish Police Jury are expected to share the cost of the center, Machen said. She said both have made verbal commitments to help fund the center, but their agreement has yet to be made formal.

“This is going to save us a lot of time in being able to respond to people’s needs … quicker,” Cox said. “It’s been a long time coming.”