The emergency alert system installed in fire stations across Dallas is failing and causing delays in firefighters’ response times.
City Council members were told by the heads of Dallas’ Fire and IT Departments that the complete emergency alert system the city has been paying to use since 2005 now needs to be replaced.
Bill Zielinski, Dallas’ chief information officer, said the failure rate has increased over the last eighteen months. Zielinski and Fire Chief Dominique Artis revealed that the software version of the emergency system is old and is not working correctly with Windows 7 or Windows 10, which are the city’s computer operating systems.
Both men also revealed that a 911 dispatcher has been dedicated to calling Dallas fire stations to ensure firefighters do not miss any emergency calls.
Cara Mendelsohn, Dallas City Council member, said firefighters told her about instances in her district where the nearest fire station was alerted about an emergency. She added that firefighters who responded to the burning building had to inform the firefighters of the nearest station when they noticed their fire truck was still parked in the garage.
“They never heard it,” Mendelsohn said. “It was the middle of the night, and the apartment complex sustained a lot more damage than it probably would have had Station 10 gone out.”
Colorado-based Locution Systems Inc provided the current emergency system after Dallas City Council approved a new five-year contract with the company in September 2017.
The contract, worth around $259,000, is supposed to cover software updates and technical support. The system is supposed to send automated alerts about emergency calls through the public address systems of fire stations.
Due to the failures, Zielinski said that provision has been made in the department’s new budget for a new system.