Emergency Communications Center
Arlington County, Virginia
The Agency
WITHIN THE PUBLIC SAFETY FIELD the Arlington County Emergency Communications Center and the two departments for which it dispatches all have unsurpassed reputations for professionalism and excellence in the performance of their assigned duties. Over the intervening years it has remained a distinct source of personal pride for me that I was selected for a position with that center.
The County
ARLINGTON COUNTY was originally part of the ten-mile square parcel of land surveyed in 1791 to be the Nation’s Capital. It’s official name was “Alexandria County of the District of Columbia,” and included what is now Arlington County plus part of the neighboring City of Alexandria. Congress eventually ceded that portion of the District which was south of the Potomac River back to the Commonwealth of Virginia. Alexandria and Arlington subsequently separated, and in 1920 the name Arlington County was adopted. The name comes from the home of General Robert E. Lee, which is located on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.
Arlington House, formerly known as the Custis-Lee Mansion, was occupied by the family of Robert E. Lee prior to the Civil War. When Lee resigned his commission in the United States Army to accept an appointment in the Confederate army, the Union army seized the mansion and grounds to keep the overlook from falling into Confederate army hands. Rather than return the property after the war, the federal government declared it a national cometary. The mansion still sits high on a bluff overlooking Arlington National Cemetery, the Potomac River, and Washington, D.C..
There are no cities or towns within Arlington County. The Virginia state constitution forbids their formation.
Located directly across the Potomac River from Washington D.C., it is connected to the District via six of the busiest bridges you’d ever want to travel. One of those bridges is the span of the 14th Street Bridge that was struck by an Air Florida flight that had just taken off from National Airport. The plane struck the main commuter bridge during a snowstorm and at the height of rush-hour traffic.
Washington and Arlington are also connected by two subway lines on the Metrorail system, one goes over the Potomac River and one goes under it. There are nine Metrorail stations in Arlington along with twelve miles of subway tracks, six of them underground. Two interstate highways, I-66 and I-395, run through Arlington.
Completely urban, Arlington County occupies twenty-six square miles in area. It is the smallest county in Virginia. Its population is about 170,000, but during workweek hours that jumps to around 220,000.
There are a number of familiarly named locations within Arlington County. Some of these are believed by many people to be in Washington, D.C., but are in fact in Arlington. These include the Pentagon, National Airport, Arlington National Cemetery, Fort Myer Army Base, and the Iwo Jima Memorial. National Airport is the eighth busiest airport in the country. Some 16 million passengers pass through the airport and hence through Arlington County each year.
The Emergency Communications Center
All 9•1•1 calls originating in Arlington County are answered at the Emergency Communications Center (ECC). It is a consolidated center, and all staff members are cross-trained to work police, fire, and medical call-taking and dispatch. Its employees dispatch for two agencies: the Arlington County Police Department and the Arlington County Fire Department. The fire department provides fire suppression, fire prevention, fire investigations, fire code enforcement, and emergency medical services. The police department is the law enforcement agency in the county. The sheriff’s office is a separate agency and provides support services to the court system.
Arlington County’s ECC was established in 1980 by merging the police and fire dispatch centers. It was one of the country’s first consolidated and fully civilian public safety dispatch centers. The CAD system that came with the consolidated center included mobile data terminals in police vehicles. These computers were the first of their kind in the metropolitan area. By the time I went to work there, they also had mobile data terminals in the fire and EMS apparatus.
When I worked there, the ECC was located in the police station. There was one police station for the county and 10 fire stations. The center was relocated in 1993 to a new facility in the Court Square West Building in Arlington County’s governmental building complex.
Lessons Learned
Arlington County’s ECC was the first of two consolidated centers at which I would work. It was my first experience with handling fire calls and with handling EMS calls that were handled by a fire department. I had to learn the structured response levels used by the fire department. I learned that when it comes to crisis management, the fire department is far more efficient and organized than any police department with which I’ve worked.
The consolidated environment and full cross training worked there. Of course, the center only dispatched for two agencies and those agencies were both part of one county government. That simplifies both political and operational issues that arise during agency consolidation.
They had an excellent training program. There were, as I recall, 7 of us in training at the time. We met in the training room of Station 72, located at the corner of Wilson Boulevard and George Mason Drive near Arlington Hospital. The training covered everything in detail, from local geography and major streets and policies to CAD and role playing.
When we finished the training, we were ready to go on shift. Not that we were just thrown to the sharks. We were each assigned to an experienced dispatcher in a kind of mentoring relationship so that we had someone we could also ask if we had a question and someone always there to guide us through new experiences.
It was, to reiterate, a very professional and competent communications center.
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