Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
MEMBERS OF the Iron County Sheriff's Department train on the county's new enhanced 911 system. Among those at the training were, seated from left, Sheriff Tony Furyk, 911 Coordinator Stacy Ofstad - standing, deputy Jonathon Gwyn, Josh Kretzschmar with CenturyLink, Undersheriff Donna Klawitter and Deputy Cheryl Strand. MEMBERS OF the Iron County Sheriff's Department train on the county's new enhanced 911 system. Among those at the training were, seated from left, Sheriff Tony Furyk, 911 Coordinator Stacy Ofstad - standing, deputy Jonathon Gwyn, Josh Kretzschmar with CenturyLink, Undersheriff Donna Klawitter and Deputy Cheryl Strand.
By RICHARD JENKINS
Hurley - Officials are urging Iron County residents to dial 911 in emergencies as the county launches its enhanced 911 system on Jan. 27.
The enhanced 911 system is a cloud-based storage system and tie 911 calls to a master street addressing system that will provide a map of a caller's location to help responders reach destinations faster, according to Iron County 911 Coordinator Stacy Ofstad.
"The main benefit is that it's going to be a much quicker response time, Ofstad told the Daily Globe. "Currently ... when people call, it's just 911. It's just a direct line. With the enhanced, it will basically have the caller's information - the same information that would be on a phone bill - for their landline. And then, that gets fed through a routing system that will actually pop up the name, the address and what emergency services would apply to that caller (given the municipality they calling from)."
The new system will also provide an address or GPS location on a map to show where the call is originating, Ofstad said.
It is important to dial 911, rather than the sheriff department's 10-digit phone number as the new system prioritizes the 911 calls over calls on other lines.
Iron County was the last county is Wisconsin to adopt an enhanced 911 system.
Ofstad said residents could call 715-561-2440 for non-emergency calls to the Iron County Sheriff's Department or 715-561-3544 for non-emergency calls to the Hurley Police Department.
