KANSAS CITY, Mo. — When there’s a fire or other emergency, you dial 911. From there, authorities handle the rest dispatching the right crews to help. But when a system broke down on Tuesday, the Kansas City Fire Department had to go “old school” to stay “on duty.”
In one day, the Kansas City Fire Department’s dispatch center will take about 400 calls. They use a computer aided system called CAD to locate where the emergency is and where the nearest help is located. But it stopped working Tuesday morning.
“The bells that go off when this station gets a rung, the lights will come on. That’s not happening right now. And when the rig goes to the store to get food or go out and do training, things of that nature, we can’t track exactly where that rig is,” says James Garrett of the KCFD.
That’s why firefighters remain grounded at their stations in case a dispatch call was made over the radio while Plan B was in motion.
The dispatch team moved from headquarters off Eastwood Trafficway to South Patrol where the backup CAD is located.
“It just happens from time to time. We have breakdowns here and there,” Garrett said.
That doesn’t mean quality was compromised. He says there was no delay in services despite the glitch.
“We don’t have room to fail to where we stay down for about two hours because there are lives are at stake,” he added.
It’s not clear how long it will take to fix the problem because they first have to pinpoint how it cropped up in the first place.