CLEVELAND (WJW) – A team of dispatchers has been sent by the Telecommunicators Emergency Response Taskforce to fill in for dispatchers in Buncombe County, North Carolina .
The team of 15 includes the team leader and several dispatchers from Chagrin Valley Dispatch in Bedford , and several dispatchers from Summit Emergency Communications in Akron as well as Southwest Emergency Dispatch Center in Strongsville .
The team arrived in Asheville on Tuesday.
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They’re filling in for the dispatchers there who’ve been working around the clock since the storm hit, so they’re able to deal with recovery efforts at their homes and with their families.
A TERT team member, Scott Brown, spoke with FOX 8 News on Thursday about how much of a difference this makes for the dispatchers in North Carolina.
“Oh, it’s huge,” he said. “Some of them had not left, had not been able to know what’s going on in their personal life. They didn’t know what had happened to their house. They didn’t know what was going on with their family. So, it’s huge for them to be able to get out and get that relief and be able to do what they need to do.”