The following article was submitted by 
Supervisor Crystal Simpson, of the 9-1-1 Center

The Eastern Shore of Virginia 9-1-1 Communications Center (ESVA911) serves the Counties of Accomack and Northampton, excluding the Town of Chincoteague (which has its own 9-1-1 Center).  All 9-1-1 calls are received by the ESVA911 Communications Center.  Police calls are transferred to local Sheriff's Offices or the Virginia State Police for handling and dispatching.  Fire and emergency medical services calls are handled and dispatched directly to fire and EMS agencies by the staff of the Eastern Shore of Virginia 9-1-1 Communications Center. The Center dispatches calls for 21 EMS/Fire stations that are Volunteer and Career staffed.

In addition to receiving wireline 9-1-1 calls, the Eastern Shore 9-1-1 Center also serves as an answering point for cellular and other wireless 9-1-1 calls. The Center is capable of and committed to receiving Enhanced Wireless 9-1-1 Phase I and Phase II Calls.  VoIP 9-1-1 calls are currently accepted on a designated 10-digit emergency phone number; however, all VoIP services are encouraged to seek delivery of 9-1-1 calls via our 9-1-1 tandems used for traditional 9-1-1 calls.

The Eastern Shore 9-1-1 Center uses Plant Equipment's VESTA ® 9-1-1 telephone equipment, supplemented by Plant's MagIC® call reporting tool.  Our Computer Aided Dispatch system is provided by SunGARD/HTE (OSSI), and radio dispatching is supported by two Motorola MCC5500 communications consoles. When the Center first opened, the consoles used were Motorola Centracom Series II.

The Center also serves as an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) for any consolidated Emergency Services operations of the two counties and the Town of Chincoteague, as well as housing the Accomack County Emergency Operations Center.

The Center started its operations on September 11^th 1991, with the help of our Consultant Scott R. Chandler.  We are always staffed with (2) Communications Officers on duty at all times and all dipatchers are EMD and APCO certified.

Brief History of Communications on the Eastern  Shore
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Editor's Note:

    In 1977, high-band was installed and the frequency 155.220 was added – many of you remember the call sign, KFP-535.  With the addition of high-band, the use of pagers came into existence. Prior to pagers, the only means of alerting volunteers was by the use of house sirens, located at each of the fire stations, or by telephone (typically used for some stations'ambulance calls). The idea of implementing 9-1-1 was first mentioned in 1987 and approved by local governing bodies in 1988. A steering and planning committee recommended to form a 9-1-1 Commission.  During 1990 and early 1991, all of the streets and roads in both counties were properly named, since prior to this only the roads/streets maintained by the state were numbered by the Commonwealth of Virginia. The 9-1-1 Commission was approved by the Board of Supervisors of both counties in July 1990, and they met for the first time in October of that year. During 1991, the first dispatchers were hired and after years of planning, the Eastern Shore of Virginia 9-1-1 Communications Center became fully operational on September 11, 1991 at 0911 hrs. Since 1966, the Sheriff’s Office had dispatched all fire and rescue calls.

    During the 1990’s, the NASA – Wallops Flight Facility requested to be incorporated into the numbering system, and was subsequently issued Stations 25 and 26 for their two fire stations, although they operate as one department. The station numbers 22 through 24 were purposely reserved for the addition of future fire and EMS stations. The most recent station to be added is Station 31, Northampton County Department of EMS.

    The 911 Center also receives numerous requests for mutual-aid to outside agencies, mainly our neighbors to the north, Worcester County, Maryland - as several northern Accomack county stations are part of an automatic mutual-aid dispatch procedure. Worcester County, as well as the Eastern Shore 9-1-1 Center, now uses a GIS – Computer Aided Dispatch system, which allows the next closest fire & EMS stations to respond and assist the primary station. Also, at times, calls for mutual-aid are received from the Virginia Beach Fire & EMS department, to assist with incidents occurring on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

    For several years, now the center has named a dispatcher of the year, Krista Killmon was named Dispatcher of the Year for 2010. So far this year the 9-1-1 Center staff has dispatched 6,100 EMS incidents and 1,480 fire incidents. On September 11, 2011 the center reached a milestone, and celebrated it's 20th Anniversary. In closing, the staff of easternshorefire.com would like to extend our thanks to the staff of the 9-1-1 Center for allowing us to visit the center and for providing the article. Special recognition is given to Director Jeff Flournoy, Consultant Scott Chandler, and Supervisors Cyrstal Simpson & Marge Surran for their assistance, and for providing the photographs that appear in the slide show.

The Staff:

9-1-1 Director: Jeff Flournoy

Consultant: Scott R. Chandler

 Supervisors: Marge Surran & Crystal Simpson

 Full-time Communications Officers:

Lisa Gibbons

Wayne Marshall

Hope Linton

Krista Kilmon

Rudy Hudson

Ashley Mapp

Dean Reid

Part-Time Communications Officers:

Coley Beasley

Kevin Holloway

Carrie Kulick

Mike Wessells

Jason Taylor

Tony Montross

Tonya Taylor

Ryan Aydelotte

Cole Bonniwell

Amanda Perkins