New apps in Tazewell released to help police respond to emergencies
Oct. 17—TAZEWELL, Va. — Seconds count when emergencies strike at school or at home, so Tazewell County's teachers and residents now have new cellphone apps that alert first responders and give them vital information at the same time.
The Tazewell County Sheriff's Office, 911 Center and Tazewell County Public Schools announced two new lifesaving programs Friday that have become part of the 911 Center along with a new dispatcher position. These programs are the Smart911 app for the county's citizens and the Rave Panic Button for the county school system.
Smart911 is a free service that allows individuals and families to sign up online to give key information to 911 dispatchers during an emergency.
"Smart911 saves critical time in an emergency and has proven to save lives nationwide," said Capt. Randy Ann Davis, 911 director. "The additional information provided in a Smart911 Safety Profile enables us to know exactly where we are going and who we are looking for in a house fire or at the scene of a vehicle accident; those details can help us respond faster and more efficiently."
People using the Smart911 app can supply information such as whether a home's residents have medical conditions or mental illnesses, give directions to their home and even whether a home has any pets in it, Sheriff Brian Hieatt said.
"It has just about any kind of options you would like to include," Hieatt said.
Smart911 allows users to create a Safety Profile for their home at www.smart911.com or on the Smart911 App. When a citizen makes an emergency call, and has set up a Smart911 profile, their Safety Profile is displayed to 911 dispatchers automatically, allowing them to dispatch the right first responders to the right location with the right information, Davis said.
The Smart911 App is available at the Apple Store or Google Play.
Another new app, this one available to Tazewell County's schools, is the Rave Panic Button. This app will allow faster responses to active shooter situations and other emergencies, Davis said.
"This is a great resource tool to enhance the safety of all school personnel and students," said Dr. Chris Stacy, superintendent of Tazewell County Public Schools. "Tazewell County Public Schools strive to provide a safe environment and our law enforcement partners have been outstanding in helping to keep our schools secure."
The Rave Panic Button, which has been funded through the county school system, gives teachers the ability to send out immediate emergency notifications through their cellphones if an emergency happens in their classrooms or school campus. Teachers can choose the type of emergency to send to 911: active shooter; police; fire; EMS or other. The app immediately connects with 911 while alerting other teachers and administrators throughout the building, Davis said.
The Rave Panic Button is available only to school personnel, Hieatt said.
When there is an emergency, the 911 center dispatcher — a new position for school safety — can use security cameras to check situations in the schools and pass the information to police and other first responders, Hieatt said.
"With the Rave App, teachers and administrators can instantly dial 911 while simultaneously alerting school resource officers and teachers throughout the school building," Hieatt said. "Rave Panic Button allows our first response teams to save precious minutes, which can be the difference between life and death. It enables us to better protect our community across the spectrum of emergency types and is an invaluable augmentation to our capabilities."
To work with these new safety features, the Tazewell County Board of Supervisors added a 911 dispatcher to be part of the sheriff's office School Safety Division and will focus on helping with various school safety programs throughout the county. This new dispatcher will monitor for Rave emergencies while focusing on other safety programs such as Handle with Care, direct emergency radio communication with the schools and accessing the schools' camera systems to help during emergencies. Work is underway on a program in which Tazewell County's school bus drivers will have direct radio contact with 911 for emergencies along their bus routes, pick-up stops or inside the buses.
— Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com
Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com
