The San Juan County Sheriff’s Department and County Council is celebrating a new level of security for county residents with the Sheriff’s dispatch center’s connection with the Island County Emergency Services Command Center. With the completion of extensive equipment and communication systems updates, the two systems will be completely compatible and capable of backing each other up on a moment’s notice.

“Should we have a communications or equipment failure in our dispatch center, calls can instantly be routed to ICOM and their personnel will be able to temporarily dispatch fire, emergency medical and law enforcement resources seamlessly,” said Sheriff Ron Krebs.

System updates began in the San Juan County enhanced 911 dispatch center in late 2013, after the Sheriff’s office received a grant to replace obsolete equipment. The program was expanded when the failure of a CenturyLink underwater cable showed the vulnerability of both the 911 dispatch and government telecommunications systems.

“We saw it as absolutely a life safety issue and made it a budget priority,” said Council Chairman Bob Jarman.

In 2013 and 2014, 911 dispatch and county government telecommunications systems were replaced with state-of-the-art systems.

The county technology department has spent much of this year working with non-CenturyLink vendors to provide redundant microwave and cable data connections, to insure that failure of a single system will not disrupt electronic communications with the mainland as it did in 2013. In late August of this year, the vulnerability was again driven home when a car crashed into a utility pole in Anacortes and knocked out more than half of the county government’s and county residents’ data and voice communications for several hours.

The county has since established an additional secure data route through Bellingham and ICOM and the San Juan County Dispatch Center have been given top priority to insure that its interconnection does not share single points of failure with existing systems. Over the past two years, the council has approved the expenditure of nearly $200,000 to replace obsolete and unreliable technology and to set up the infrastructure for the interconnect.