EVERETT, Wash., June 14, 2023—The Snohomish County 911 dispatch center is Washington state’s largest 911 center by volume, area, and population served, handling an average 2,031 incoming calls or texts for emergency service a day – roughly one call every 42 seconds.

“It is an exciting and rewarding career. It’s never dull in that even if you’re not talking on the radio or taking a 911 call, you always have your team around you that you can talk to and work with – the team atmosphere definitely drew me in,” said Hattie Schweitzer, Operations Manager at Snohomish County 911. “It’s immediately gratifying to be able to help somebody so quickly and to help so many people over the lifespan of a career. To look back and to say wow I’ve really impacted a lot of lives.”

Hattie Schweitzer has been working at the center since 1996, beginning as a dispatcher for the first 15 years of her career, before working her way up to supervisor and eventually Operations Manager – a title she’s held for the last six years.

While Schweitzer was working as a supervisor, she had the privilege of working closely with Snohomish County Search and Rescue to find and help rescue people who were lost in the wilderness or waterways. It’s one of her favorite memories in her career so far aside from being able to help people in the worst moments of their lives while providing critical life-saving instructions.

As one of three Operations Managers at the dispatch center, Schweitzer’s primary role is training new employees, although she said training is “only probably 25% of [her] job just because [she] wears a lot of hats.” Administrative staff, into which Operations Manager falls, do not contractually accept emergency calls or dispatch.

Similar to Operations Managers, Supervisors are not placed into normal, every day, staffing, typically only receiving backup emergency calls, dispatch as needed, or in overtime hours, Schweitzer explained, although they do possess the skills to fill in on calls and radio when needed.

“That’s just the way we operate here; every 911 center is different,” said Schweitzer. “You could go to NorCom and you’d get a different story, South Sound – different story.”

The three disciplines in which Schweitzer trains dispatchers is 911 call taking, emergency medical or police dispatching, and fire dispatching, using specific protocols and standards to give life-saving interventions.

“It’s a very regimented, protocol-driven, medical system that we use and in their first phase of training they’re certified as a medical dispatcher,” said Schweitzer.

The center is currently approved for 109 dispatcher positions and is actively hiring to fill its 15 vacancies.

New employees can expect to train anywhere from nine to 12 months before they are working independently. The initial step to training begins in a classroom setting, then with a Certified Training Officer (CTO) in a live environment for 10-12 weeks. After that trainees return to the classroom for two weeks for more academy time learning how to be a dispatcher. The last leg of training is learning how to fire dispatch.

The main dispatch center in Everett has many critical components to its hardware and software including its computer aided dispatching (CAD), which uses Tyler Technologies, Viper 911 phone system, and a 700 / 800-megahertz radio system run and operated by a team who are trained in FCC standards.

The dispatch floor has 30 consoles filled with call takers, police dispatchers, and fire dispatchers at all hours of the day although staffing can vary depending on time of day and time of year. The graveyard shift “skeleton” crew, for example, consists of 10 police dispatchers, five fire dispatchers, three call takers, and two supervisors. Call takers are usually increased to six during the day shift. This does not include the four, or five, training dispatchers on the floor at any given time.

A second backup dispatch center is located in Mountlake Terrace at the former SnoCom building, opened when SnoCom and Snohomish 911 merged in 2018.

Historically, Fourth of July is the dispatch center’s busiest time of the year, Schweitzer explained, although some events such as heatwaves have come close. Summer months also tend to be busier.

Calls are on automatic routing, so first-come-first-serve, and automatically connected to a dispatcher via a headset in under a second or two. Immediately the call taker asks for an address, verifies that address in several different forms, then asks what the nature of the call is. As soon as they receive the most pertinent details, and a phone number, the call gets entered into a call service and routed to the corresponding agency based on geographical location.

The national standard of call answering is within 20 seconds or less. For the last four years, Sno911 has maintained an average 99% of that 20-second standard.

After routing response time lies with the routed agency – whether police, emergency, or fire – but it can take as little as five minutes for an agency to arrive, depending on the urgency. Calls that consist of threat to life and threat to property are typically prioritized.

“That’s why it’s critical that people call the 911 line for emergencies and our non-emergency line for non-emergencies so we can correctly answer them in the order they need help,” said Schweitzer.

Behind the scenes of Snohomish County 911, there is an army of technicians, coordinators, and experts who support a vast and complex system and network of systems that operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, ensuring that 911, police, sheriff, fire, and EMS can always count on them.

In 2022 Sno911 handled 741,320 incoming calls or texts for emergency services, according to its 2023 annual report. 577,212 of these calls were for police services and 113,659 were for Fire or EMS services. The remaining are considered non-emergency or operational calls.