Pa. County`s Emergency Paging System Goes Down for 2.5 Hours

April 30--York County's emergency paging system went down for 2.5 hours on Saturday, prompting 911 dispatchers to notify emergency responders about calls through the county's public safety radio network or by telephone, according to a news release.

No emergency calls were missed, and proper protocols were followed in notifying firefighters and medical personnel, said Carl Lindquist, a county spokesman.

The outage did not affect police departments because they receive voice dispatches on the radio, the news release states.

Both the primary and secondary paging systems went down Saturday. The problem is that the computer-aided dispatching system at times sends redundant information and causes it to freeze.

New World Systems, Inc., which develops software for the computer-aided dispatch system, will be coming in with a fix to the problem within a couple of weeks.

"That should eliminate the issue," Lindquist said.

In the meantime, the county is using an alternative arrangement for dispatching calls when officials are concerned the paging system is reaching its capacity. This would be for multiple alarm calls, not the routine calls. The staff will intervene and do some of the dispatching.

This alternative arrangement was used during the West York fire overnight Monday, and it worked, he said.

It will take a little longer, but "it's not going to increase the response time substantially," Lindquist said.

The system functioned 99 percent of the time last year, the news release states.

Contact Teresa Boeckel at (717) 771-2031.

Wood stove ashes cause barn, woods fire in West Manheim Township

York County: Emergency paging system failed, protocol for notifying responders not followed

Should York County continue with a $27 million emergency radio system project?

Copyright 2014 - York Daily Record, Pa.