Roanoke, VA – The City of Roanoke will celebrate National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week on April 10-16 to honor the men and women who serve as Public Safety Telecommunicators. This year, the city will recognize its dispatchers with a meal and a week-long celebration of appreciation. In addition, the E-911 Center has selected Mistine Traegner as Dispatcher of the Year; she will receive a plaque, and the opportunity to attend the 2016 Virginia NENA/APCO Spring Conference in recognition of this honor.
The center’s dispatchers handle more than 275,000 emergency and non-emergency calls each year, dispatching calls to Roanoke Police, Fire and EMS personnel to meet the needs of the public in emergencies and on a routine basis.
Congress proclaimed the second week of April as National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week in 1991. Today, hundreds of thousands of calls placed to 911 centers across the nation are answered by telecommunicators, dispatchers and communications operators, who utilize telephones, radios and computers to provide support to law enforcement, Fire-EMS, and other government field personnel.
For information about the City of Roanoke’s E-911 Center or the week’s events, please contact Rebekah Stephens, E-911 Operations Specialist, at 540-853-5348.