9-1-1 Dispatchers are the vital first link in the chain of public safety which begins every time the 9-1-1 phone rings.

We at the Clinton County DES would like to take a moment to recognize and thank our own team of 9-1-1 Dispatchers and 9-1-1 Dispatchers everywhere for the work that they do every day.

About the Center 

As a small rural county, the CCDES Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) is one of the most technologically advanced in the area. The PSAP is a full service 9-1-1 communications center taking 9-1-1 emergency calls and conducting dispatching for all Fire, EMS and Municipal Police departments within Clinton County.

The PSAP operates a state of the art telephone system for the handling of 9-1-1 emergency calls. The 9-1-1 telephone system is linked to a computer software mapping program, which automatically plots incoming 9-1-1 emergency call on a map. Through the interaction of these two (2) systems the Telecommunicator in most cases is able to visually identify the location of the party calling 9-1-1.

In addition to being able to identify the location of people dialing 9-1-1 from a fixed/hard line telephone, our PSAP is also able to locate certain cellular telephone users dialing 9-1-1 for emergency assistance. While this feature is not currently available for all cellular service providers, it is available to most major cellular service carriers operating within Clinton County.

The PSAP also utilizes a Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system to store and track data specific to the dispatching of fire, EMS and law enforcement agencies. The CAD system stores data used to identify the appropriate response of agencies based on an incident type and incident location. Furthermore the CAD system tracks time specific to incidents and also allows the Telecommunicator to document and store incident/situation specific information. Once all of the necessary data is captured in the CAD system, we are then able to use the data to generate a multitude of reports.

While being state-of-the-art in our emergency call handling, the PSAP also operates a complex microwave based radio communications system. The radio communications network operates from eight (8) different tower sites located throughout Clinton and Centre Counties. All radio communication for Fire, EMS and Police agencies in Clinton County are conducted on high band radio frequencies