Among top facilities in state
By Jarod Wells
Thursday, November 05, 2009 at 4:54 p.m.
Read more: Local, State, Community
(Marion Co., Mo.) Marion County is heading to the top of Missouri when it comes to emergency communication.
A ribbon cutting ceremony was held today to officially open its new $2.2 million dollar 911 center.
Workers are in the final phases of installing and testing equipment, but we were told employees are hoping to be moved in by Thanksgiving.
The key component to the facility is new technology.
It has the ability to handle 'phase 2 cellular locating.'
That allows Marion County 911 the ability to pin point a cellular call when the caller can not give their exact location.
"It is critical. It is literally the difference between sending help and getting help to the right location and somebody possibly having a significant delay in help arriving, if at all. It's critical that when someone needs 911, needs fire, police or EMS that we find them," said Marion Co. 911 Executive Director Mike Hall.
A $500,000 grant from Missouri Homeland Security helped pay for some of that new technology.
We asked the Missouri Homeland Security Coordinator if facilities like this one will help moved the state forward when it comes to emergency communication.
"If we ask ourselves are we safer, certainly centers like this and what they represent, the ability for the people to communicate with the first responder community whenever they need help, whenever there's critical need, this is definitely going to move us forward," said Missouri Homeland Security Coordinator Paul Fennewald.
There will be two chances for the public to view the new Marion County 911 Center.
Saturday, Nov. 7th - 9am - Noon & Sunday, Nov. 8th 1-4pm
The new location is located at 3246 Highway 61 at the northern edge of Hannibal.
