A New 9-1-1 Center with a Technology Refresh

By Ernie Blair

The Huntsville-Madison County 9-1-1 System (HMC 9-1-1) occupied its new home in September 2020, not a moment too soon. Organizations including NASA, the Army Material Command (AMC), the FBI, Facebook, Missile Defense Agency (MDA), Mazda-Toyota, and AeroJet Rocketdyne propelled Huntsville to the largest populated city in Alabama with a metro population of almost 400,000 people, and another 100,000 who drive in to work each day. The Huntsville-Madison County 9-1-1 Center also experienced rapid growth, leaving Alabama’s largest 9-1-1 Center bursting at the seams.

THE CENTER

The Center houses a multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional concept, with seven additional Public Safety Agencies sharing space alongside the 9-1-1 calltakers. HMC 9-1-1 was one of the first such agencies to embrace this concept, with all local police, fire and EMS agencies housing their dispatchers alongside 9-1-1 calltakers. Operating as a “combined” communications facility, the players coordinating the responders to the scene of an emergency are all located in one large operations room, only a few feet from each other and sharing the best technology available. This combined facility layout allows them to send the best combination of public safety responders accurately and expeditiously to any emergency. Additional space is available for more public safety agencies from the local universities, Redstone Arsenal, and the HMC Airport Authority. In addition to meeting the requirement of more space, the Board recognized employee retention, employee training, and top-of-the-line equipment and technology as critical requirements for success. The 200+ employees from all agencies provided input into the center’s design and construction, resulting in many personal comfort improvements. The 30,000 square foot FEMA-rated facility doubles the size of the old building with additional conference rooms, including advanced multimedia and click-to-share access, expanded employee break areas, a massive operations room, and an oversized server room.

Height adjustable ergonomic operating consoles include built-in heating and cooling. The new Huntsville-Madison County 9-1-1 Building was designed for function and employee comfort.

AMENITIES

Social distancing was built into the construction of the operations room, the heart of the Center’s activity. Hospital operating room air quality and air flow is provided throughout the building by ultraviolet and air scrubbing technology. Sunlight in the operations room

The Spacious Operations Center is FEMA rated for tornado protection.

A “quiet room” provides a place to recover from stressful calls.

Redundant generators can run the Center for weeks at a time. Sine-wave tracking surge protectors protect all electrical distribution panels. Grounding and bonding exceed Motorola R-56 standards.

was considered important to employees as the windowless, underground operations room in the old Center was lightheartedly referred to as a “dungeon”. Windows were designed into the new operations room along with ergonomic workstations and chairs. Dispatch furniture has two adjustable levels—one for keyboards and mice and a second supporting the monitors. Each level adjusts to a user’s exact specifications, moving at the touch of a button. During a long shift, operators can move back and forth between sitting and standing positions by simply entering the numbers of their custom presets. Heaters and cooling fans are built into each station for personal temperature control. Spacious indoor and outdoor break facilities including smoking areas, exercise room, bunk rooms for extended stays due to inclement weather, and a lighted, secure outdoor walking track were requested and delivered with the new building. Additionally, a pellet ice machine, a convenience store-style vending area, and multiple refrigerators are available for each agency. A “quiet room” is provided for calltakers and dispatchers to recover from stressful calls. HMC 9-1-1 management exceeded expectations by providing a comfortable work environment for these hardworking and dedicated employees. The construction of a new building created an opportunity to upgrade all technology. The way people communicate, along with the ever-changing technological world, means HMC 9-1-1 is always playing catch up. Eighty-five percent of calls to HMC 9-1-1 come from cellphones and there are more and more phone apps created daily that can enhance a caller’s interaction with HMC 9-1-1. Text-to-9-1-1 is now a reality at HMC 9-1-1, along with several new caller location platforms. Rapid SOS technology provides a more accurate call location, and when completed, “what-three-words” will routinely place a caller’s position down to a ten-foot square area. The HMC 9-1-1 telephone system has a redundant “core” in another location that provides a separate telephone controller to take over in the event of a failure at the new HMC 9-1-1 Center. The two cores are connected by diverse, dedicated fiber connections to provide multiple paths connecting the primary and secondary cores. The HMC 9-1-1 telephone system was significantly upgraded during the move into the new building. The HMC 9-1-1 center also contains the master site for the digital P25 public safety radio system that serves all HMC 9-1-1 user agencies and others in the area. This is the “brain” that controls the radio system. A secondary master site was constructed at another location in anticipation of the move from the old building to the new. This allowed almost no interruption of the radio service when physically moving the original master site equipment to the new building. As a result, we now have geo-redundant master sites that fail over to each other. A Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network, incorporating both microwave shots and fiber optics connects the two master sites and all radio towers. It was implemented shortly after the move to the new building and provides multiple redundant microwave and fiber paths among the master sites and the various radio towers. Reliable power quality and emergency power generation capabilities are critical to any 9-1-1 Center. HMC 9-11’s grounding, bonding and transient voltage surge suppression systems are unmatched anywhere. The Center

A dedicated training room fully mimics all 9-1-1 systems and databases. The 9-1-1 system allows rapid recovery during provider outages.

is fed from two separate commercial power feeds from two different utility substations. Two redundant 400 kVA diesel generators, each with 1800-gallon on-site storage tanks provide back-up power. Two UPS systems in an A/B configuration provide separate uninterruptible sources for devices with dual power supplies. A separate training room was added in the new building. It provides a dedicated training area outside of the operations room, while providing trainees access to the “live” 9-1-1 environment when needed. Workstations emulate the 9-1-1 phone system and fully mimic all data systems to provide realistic training scenarios. Conference rooms as well as the training area’s computers are available to Emergency Management Agency officials for use as a back-up site. The new 9-1-1 Center was already used for EMA command and control on one incident. An IT workshop was built including workbenches, test equipment, and parts storage for the technical staff. Software can be loaded and tested on multiple servers/ clients simultaneously and hardware can be burned-in and checked-out prior to migration to the operations and server rooms. Security Monitoring and processes were enhanced at the new HMC 9-1-1 Center with the addition of services of a professional cybersecurity company. Internet accessible and non-internet accessible systems were placed on separate networks. Production systems (those with critical 9-1-1 functions) are now isolated from the public internet. A better Records Management System utilizing Laser Fiche and other products greatly reduces paperwork and record search time. The HMC 9-1-1 Center’s voice recorder was also upgraded during the move.

PASSING THE FIRST MAJOR TEST

The Alabama 9-1-1 Board established the Alabama Next Generation Emergency Network (ANGEN) including an Emergency Services Information Network (ESInet) and a Message Evolution (MEVO) backup 9-1-1 telephone system. MEVO phones are located at every position in operations and provide a complete secondary phone system for both 9-1-1 calls and administrative 10-digit calls. The newly installed MEVO phones were successfully put to the test three months after opening the new HMC 9-1-1 Center. The Christmas Day Nashville bombing of AT&T infrastructure caused HMC 9-1-1 to lose access to its 10-digit non-emergency lines. Fortunately, 9-1-1 calls were unaffected since they are delivered through the Alabama 9-1-1 Board’s ANGEN ESInet. Fast thinking and clever engineering by HMC 9-1-1’s IT staff led to re-routing the failed AT&T 10-digit calls through the MEVO phones, completely restoring that service until AT&T service returned days later. This was important because fire and burglar alarm monitoring companies rely on 10-digit lines to provide critical alarm information to 9-1-1. Lives and property were saved by the combination of the Alabama ANGEN program and HMC 9-1-1 on-site technical prowess.

NEXT STEPS IN TECHNOLOGY EVOLUTION

HMC 9-1-1 plans to migrate its Computer Assisted Dispatch (CAD) system to Hexagon’s OnCall Dispatch cloud-based product in the next year or so. Timing is dependent on the vendor’s release schedule. What-ThreeWords and RapidSOS caller location capabilities are continuously improving. The HMC 9-1-1 Center is currently exploring smartphone video to 9-1-1 and many other apps-based technologies. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is highly developed at HMC 9-1-1 and technical staff members are looking at even more advanced uses of GIS. The Alabama 9-1-1 Board has awarded a contract to consolidate all local 9-1-1 GIS data into one statewide platform. All Alabama 9-1-1 Centers will benefit from this development. The Center will soon connect to a four-terabyte fiber ring for additional redundancy in interconnecting the Operations Center, back up sites, and radio towers.

Plaque at the front entrance to the new HMC 9-1-1 System building. Note the “911” in Morse code on the copper wall in the front of the building. A nearby red “side marker” beacon flashes Morse code messages as well. Our people are well qualified and extensively trained.

QUALITY OF LIFE

Public Safety is the primary function of government and 9-1-1 is the first of the first responders. A community’s quality of life is dependent on effective public safety and 9-1-1 communications remains the heart. HMC 9-1-1 contributes to the outstanding quality of life in the Cities of Huntsville and Madison, as well as Madison County, Alabama. Nobody does 9-1-1 better than HuntsvilleMadison County 9-1-1, and the new 9-1-1 Center continues to enhance our stellar product to our citizens.

PEOPLE ARE THE KEY TO SUCCESS!

Employees of all agencies located at the HMC 9-1-1 Center are the best qualified and best trained anywhere. They have a “higher calling” to provide the best customer service available to people who are not having a good day. They can put those pieces together from a call a few days ago to the call they are now on to help law enforcement catch that bad guy, provide a firefighter information on where a potential victim may be, or where the closest fire hydrant is located. Every day, they get a chance to make a huge difference and they thrive on it. Everyone who works at HMC 9-1-1 saves a life on a regular basis.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ernie Blair is the CEO and Wireless Infrastructure Director for the Huntsville – Madison County 9-1-1 System. Ernie sits on various boards and planning committees throughout the state and nation. For almost 25 years, Ernie has overseen Alabama’s largest 9-1-1 Center, providing communications for all local law enforcement, fire & rescue, and EMS agencies within Madison County, Alabama. “Nobody does 911 better than we do. We are the largest center in the state and one of the few combined centers. We’re important to the quality of life and public safety. Our team saves lives every day. It’s the coolest job anyone could have.”