| By Pam Rigaux
News-Post Staff
Photo by Bill Green
Jim Ridgely was the chief dispatcher at Frederick County's original Central Alarm facility on Montevue Lane. He was the first person to sign on duty the day Central Alarm opened on June 12, 1967.
Jim Ridgely was chief dispatcher when Frederick County first opened its Central Alarm office to handle fire calls.
Ridgley, now 67, was the first person to sign on duty the day Central Alarm opened on June 12, 1967. The first shift started at 7 a.m.
The Frederick resident remembers the office well. It was located on Montevue Lane in a 20-by-40-foot room inside, filled with black buttons. Each button had the number of a fire company. The buttons activated radio signal tones unique to each fire company. They activated sirens inside fire stations for the county and city.
As luck would have it, Ridgely didn't press any buttons that first day, though a call came in for a brush fire in the late afternoon after he had left.
Looking back over the four years he spent with Central Alarm, Ridgely thinks the technology was not his biggest challenge. His biggest challenge occurred before opening day.
As a result of the move to a central dispatch office, boundaries were set up for dispatchers so they'd know which fire company to summon, he said.
Before the boundaries were set up, a caller might report a fire to a company that was not the closet agency to the fire, Ridgely said. The response time to the fire was not as fast as it could have been.
The task of determining the new geographic boundaries fell to Ridgely.
He said he enjoyed doing it. He drove local roads, taking odometer readings along the way.
Once the boundaries were in place, each fire company was responsible for the incidents closest to them.
Not everyone was happy with the boundaries, Ridgely said.
"A fire company would say that (a particular) farmer supported our fundraising campaign. He expects us to be there," he said.
Ridgely was aware he would not please everyone. He points out the system he helped establish exists to this day.
Central Alarm is now called the 911 Center, or more formally, the Frederick County Emergency Communications Center. It is located in a building on Airport Drive.
Ridgely gave up dispatching and pursued other opportunities, but he says his emergency scanner, to this day, is turned on.
PHOTO AND ARTICLE COURTESY FREDERICK NEWS POST |
