Photo: Douglas County Sheriff Chris Degase, Assessor Alicia Degase and Ava City Mayor Burrely Loftin attend a phone conference with the Missouri 911 Service Board.
Four southern Missouri counties are set to receive a $770,000 grant to improve area service that would allow Text-to-911 and boost coverage. The four are Ozark, Howell, Douglas and Wright counties.
Douglas County Sheriff Chris Degase says in a social media post, earlier this month, he and his county’s Assessor Alicia Degase and Ava City Mayor Burrely Loftin attended a phone conference with the Missouri 911 Service Board and those involved in the grant.
To provide some background, the Sheriff says he and Assessor Degase began working with the Missouri 911 Service Board, along with Wri-Comm Director Jeff Holman and Howell County 911 in an effort to secure a grant.
He says Assessor Degase began working on the 911 project over five years ago and assigning physical locations to property. These physical locations can be found on tax bills.
Both the sheriff and the assessor have met with the new commission who will be assisting as the project moves forward to provide the citizens of Douglas County and the City of Ava with 911 services.
Mike Phillips, ENP, president of the Missouri 911 Directors Association, says, “These are the services that saves lives.” Phillips says, “It’s been 20 years since we’ve seen any of these … counties move up in their service levels.”
Prior to the funding announcement, Douglas and Ozark counties did not have their own 911 answering equipment. Calls during emergencies currently head to seven-digit phone lines, where those taking calls do not receive any information on the caller, requiring the citizen to provide their names and locations.
This is going to allow for Douglas County, which has no 911, and Ozark, who has 911, but their equipment is outdated,” Wright County Communications Director Jeff Holman says.
Funding will also help Wright and Howell counties pinpoint the location of the caller through equipment. They will also be able to accept text messaging in all four of the counties.
The grant was part of nearly $2 million in funding awarded by the Missouri 911 Service Board.
Overall, this moves local services to what is described as Phase II. Comparably, 99.2% of the nationwide population already benefits from at least Phase II level service.
“This is going to allow for Douglas County, which has no 911, and Ozark County, to upgrade their equipment, to allow them to have text and 911,” Holman notes.
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