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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (April 11, 2018)
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2018 HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A9 LOCAL NEWS Solar farms planned for Morrow Company By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN STAFF WRITER STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS It can take up to five dispatchers to work on an busy swing shift when calls for service are at their highest for the day. ‘Help is on the way’ By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN STAFF WRITER Caitlin Slette remembers one of her first calls as an emergency dispatcher. “On my second or third day working on my own, I got a call from someone way out in the county,” she said. “(He) said there was some- one at his door who thought his ear had gotten shot off. He kept saying, ‘If he comes in, I’m going to shoot him.’” Slette was able to keep the caller on the phone, and get emergency services to the scene before he acted on his words. This baptism-by- fire is not abnormal for dis- patchers — the first point of contact when someone calls 911. Inside the Uma- tilla County Sheriff’s Office in Pendleton, the team of 18 dispatchers field calls from 25 different law enforcement and emergency agencies, directing police officers, fire and ambulance services to the places where call- ers need help. But new dis- patchers like Slette, who has worked in the job for nearly a year, go through months of training before they can field emergency calls. They learn the basics — finding out a person’s location, the reason for the call, and if there are any weapons — and the lan- guage of law enforcement. Slette said she trained for about three months before being able to take emer- gency calls on her own. “Multitasking is one of the biggest challenges,” Slette said. “You just have to watch and familiarize your- self with the system before you start listening.” There are five phases of training, said Justin Russell, a longtime dispatcher and trainer. “The first is mostly obser- vation,” he said. “Learning the codes, really just get- ting familiar with the flow of information.” New dispatch- ers will have a headset that’s linked to that of a senior employee, and can listen to that person take calls. From there, Russell said, they learn how to take calls on the non-emergency line and document and enter information. Then they move on to emergency calls, and finally combine all those tasks. “The most challeng- ing thing is honestly find- ing time to (train) while still working as a dispatcher,” Russell said. “Trying to train someone to connect the dots that you already see.” Each dispatcher sits at a desk with seven screens: two connected to the phone lines, three where they enter and access information from various databases, and two that access the radio system. There are usually five or six working at a time, with each person managing a different agency. One person will take care of all emergency and fire agencies, and one dis- patcher will be assigned to each police agency. As they receive information about a call, they enter it into the system, where the other dis- patchers can view it. “Even if I’m not cover- ing Umatilla, I can still see their information, because I might interact with them at some point,” Russell said. After some in-office training, dispatchers will go to a two-week academy, where they’ll learn more call taking, as well as how to dispatch certain emergency situations. They must learn how to instruct people in CPR over the phone, as well as help deliver babies. Communications officers also get training for how to give courtroom testimony, as they may be called in for a domestic violence case or a shooting they dispatched. Some of the more techni- cal aspects of the job, Russell said, come from rote memo- rization and experience. Dis- patchers work with several different databases, such as Law Enforcement Data Sys- tem. The statewide data- base can access information about wanted people, stolen vehicles and driver history. As an officer pulls someone over, dispatchers will get to work, pulling up the infor- mation for that vehicle, and let the officer know any rel- evant information. They also have access to a national system, NCIC, where they can check for warrants and other information. Dispatchers also have to familiarize themselves with the county map — even if they’ve never been to the area, they may have to direct an officer around it. “I’m not from here, so that was hard for me,” Slette said. “People will say, ‘I’m on this street,’ and I won’t even know what city.” They communicate with officers using “10 codes.” Common ones include 10-4 — copy — as well as several traffic codes. The code for a mental subject is 10-96, and for a domestic problem, 10-16. For an intoxicated UMATILLA ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE MEMBERSHIP DINNER & ANNUAL MEETING Saturday, April 21, 2018 Hermiston Community Center 5 p.m. - 7 p.m. “It’s the Water… Powering Our Communities” This year’s theme celebrates the many benefits of hydropower in shaping our culture. As always, attendance is free to UEC members. We hope you will join us! Featured Entertainment Tim Behrens, brings to life the denizens of Blight, Idaho, the fictional home town of nationally renowned humor writer Patrick McManus. driver, it’s 10-55. Some things can’t be taught in training, Slette said. “You still have to work to build the trust of the people in the room with you,” she said. “You get those calls where it takes a little longer to click in, like CPR or when an officer’s been injured. That’s terrifying.” Dispatcher Kevin Dun- ham said he continues to get calls he’d never expect. “I still get surprised when I get a 911 call, and they’re wanting the phone number for a restaurant,” he said. Many dispatchers say the emotional strain is often overlooked. Though they’re not on the scene of an inci- dent, they’re the first ones to hear about it. “When I went to my first training to be a dis- patcher, they opened up with, ‘You will last in this job five years,’” said Dun- ham. Though he’s now in his 18th year, Dunham admitted it can take its toll. “We’re service-oriented people, and someone is truly in need of help,” he said. “If we can talk someone down from considering suicide. A lot of times we’re not suc- cessful, but a lot of times we are.” Communications Ser- geant Karen Primmer said one of the toughest parts of the job is the lack of closure — once law enforcement takes over, dispatchers are no longer a part of the call, and don’t know whether something was resolved. “We sometimes get left out of that conclusion piece,” she said. “We want to hear the rest of the story.” Morrow County may soon see the development of two new solar facilities with the ability to produce 125 megawatts within its boundaries. The Carty Facility has plans for a new solar farm on its property, and the deadline for a public com- ment period on the sit- ing of the facility was Fri- day. Another solar farm, the Boardman Solar Farm, is planned for an area in northwestern Morrow County, but no immedi- ate plan has been made for construction. Max Woods, a senior policy adviser for the Ore- gon Department of Energy, said the Carty facility will be part of the complex that also houses the Carty Gen- erating Station and the Boardman coal plant. Portland General Elec- tric is the site certificate holder for the Carty solar farm, Woods said, and the property is on 300 acres south of the Carty facility. Members of the public have until Friday to offer general comments on the facility, but will be able to comment on the proposed order of the facility at a later date. Woods said the final decision lies with the Energy Facility Siting Council, a panel of gover- nor-appointed volunteers that oversee the develop- ment of large statewide energy projects. He said the produc- tion potential of the Carty solar plant is estimated at 50 megawatts, which is how much energy it could produce at any given time when all the conditions are just right. Woods said there seems to be a new trend of having multiple energy produc- tion projects in the same area, such as the Carty facility does. “There are places that combine wind and solar,” he said. “I’d guess out- side Oregon, it’s normal for natural gas and coal (facilities) to be close by, to take advantage of the infrastructure.” The Boardman coal plant is the only coal-burn- ing plant in Oregon, and is slated to close in 2020. The Boardman Solar Farm is a different facil- ity, which is scheduled for development along Inter- state 84 and near the Mor- row-Gilliam county line. The facility will be contained within Mor- row County, but will have a transmission line into Gilliam, Woods said. He said the facility was pro- posed by Chicago com- pany Invenergy, which has several other energy facil- ities in the west, includ- ing a wind farm in Gilliam County and a solar farm in Nevada. He said the Energy Facility Siting Council approved construction of the facility at a meeting in February, but no time- line has been set to start construction. That facility, he said, is estimated to produce 75 megawatts, and the prop- erty marked for the facility is 798 acres. Pedestrian struck, killed on I-84 near Stanfield STANFIELD — A vehicle struck and killed a woman trying to walk across Interstate 84 Tuesday morning near Stanfield, According to police, Rosialy Carmia Tiffany, 49, of Kennewick, died at the scene. She was report- edly walking across Inter- state 84 when she was struck by a 2006 station wagon. Oregon State Police said “Tiffany had left her vehicle and, for unknown reasons, attempted to cross the freeway where she was struck while in the fast lane.” Police said alcohol use by Tiffany “is being con- sidered a contributing fac- tor in the crash.” Lt. Mike Turner, state police commander of the Pendleton area, said the fatality occurred a few minutes before 5 a.m. on the eastbound side of Interstate 84 near milepost 189. The interstate was closed for more than four hours during the investigation. Traffic had to be routed through the town of Echo during that time. The freeway’s east- bound lanes in the immedi- ate area were reopened by 10 a.m.
