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
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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.