Durham 911 Center Achieves Three Major Accreditations; Durham Fire Department Requests Help Through Sparky’s Wish List
DTV8’s “City Hall This Week” will debut a new show tonight at 8 p.m. Hosted by Senior Public Affairs Specialist Amy Blalock, this week’s show will feature the following highlights and other topics of interest. You can also watch this new episode on demand at http://www.YouTube.com/CityofDurhamNC.
Durham 911 Center One of Only Two in World to Hold Three Major Accreditations
The Durham Emergency Communications Center is continuing to serve the community at the highest levels of excellence. After recently earning an international reaccreditation, the Center is one of only two in the world to hold three major accreditations at the same time. The most recent is from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies. Durham City/County Emergency Communications Director James Soukup explains what this means for Durham.
Text-to-911 Technology to Continue in Durham
The ability to send texts to 911 in case of emergencies will continue to be made available to Durham’s Verizon Wireless customers. The new technology has been offered on a trial basis for the past year, but will now become a permanent service that the Durham Emergency Communications Center offers. Texts should only be sent in two types of emergency situations – to help potential victims who don’t want to be heard making a 911 voice call and for deaf or hard-of-hearing residents who may be unable to speak to a 911 operator. Durham is the first 911 center in North Carolina to use this technology.
Durham Fire Department Teams Up With Sparky’s Wish List for Fire Prevention Materials
The Durham Fire Department is teaming up with Sparky’s Wish List, a partnership with the National Fire Protection Association that enables the community to provide fire safety education materials to the fire department. The partnership is designed to help fire departments close the gap between what they can afford and what they need to educate the public about fire safety. Sparky’s Wish List can be found at http://www.sparkyswishlist.org. Durham Fire Department Public Education Coordinator Sierra Jackson explains what types of items are on the list and why this partnership is important to Durham.
About “City Hall This Week”
"City Hall This Week," a news program dedicated to informing Durham residents and City employees about what’s going on inside Durham's City Hall, airs daily at 10 a.m., 1:30 p.m., and 8 p.m. on DTV8 (Time Warner Cable channel 8). The show is also available for on demand viewing at http://www.DurhamNC.gov/DTV8 or on the City’s YouTube channel at http://www.YouTube.com/CityofDurhamNC. For more information, call (919) 560-4123, “like” http://www.Facebook/CityofDurhamNC, or “follow” http://www.Twitter.com/CityofDurhamNC.