Storms hit trees, power lines Thurs. night

Barrow County Emergency Services Communication Center received 398 calls into the 911 and wireless lines and an additional 582 calls into their administrative lines from 6:00 p.m. to midnight Thursday. This resulted in 97 calls being dispatched to fire and law enforcement officials. Barrow County Emergency Services Fire and EMS units responded to 50 of these calls. Due to the high call volume E911 Manager Kathy Wallace came into the center to assist the Communication Officers.

Storm conditions resulted in 2 calls for power lines down, 29 calls for trees down and 13 calls for trees and power lines down. Barrow County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) was staffed by Deputy Chief John Skinner, Lieutenant Scott Dakin, Lieutenant Rob Nowakowski and Firefighter Royce. All trees and power lines down calls were prioritized and dispatched from the EOC.

The department also coordinated efforts with Barrow County Road and Bridges in tree removal.

“This storm was dealt with very efficiently due to the cooperation and experience of all departments involved,” stated Chief Skinner. “I am very proud of the men and woman from our department that responded to all the calls as quickly as possible. The crews that handled the house fire as quickly as they did while limiting the amount of responding units. This allowed other units to divert to other emergency calls. Also the crews on all the trucks responding to calls and dealing with them quickly and moving on to the next call helped. I thank everyone involved for their hard work."