Thursday, May 2, 2024
The Hood County Sheriff’s Office is temporarily short one 911 dispatcher, but for a good reason: to help victims of Hurricane Ian in Florida.
Shift Supervisor Tyler Brown headed to the Sunshine State last week as part of the Texas Telecommunicator Emergency Response Taskforce, a group that assists with recovery efforts in FEMA-declared disasters.
Tx-TERT’s mobilization was part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive for the Texas Division of Emergency Management to deploy additional state resources to support Florida’s response and recovery efforts.
Brown and a 911 dispatcher with the Midlothian Police Department were deployed to assist impacted Florida counties with their post-storm dispatching responsibilities.
Sheriff Roger Deeds said that Brown has worked for the SO since July 2019 but had worked for the department before. In between, he worked for Texas EMS, Deeds said.
He said that Brown will return on Sunday.
Deeds said that the North Central Texas Council of Governments has a group that is involved with the state TERT organization and that the Hood County SO is part of that group.
He said that Brown was deployed as a team leader working 12-hour shifts where needed in Florida.
The sheriff stated that being short one dispatcher is hard, “but every dispatcher I have was supportive to pull their load to make it possible for him to go.”
