Dispatch

HOOD COUNTY EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS CENTER

Hood County Emergency Communications Center (ECC) is a centralized dispatch center that has the capacity for 21 Telecommunications Officers.  The team is led by Supervisor Shawn McGuire.

The Hood County ECC Team dispatches for Hood County Sheriff’s Office, Granbury Police Department, Hood County Animal Control, Hood County Constables, Hood County Justices of the Peace, Brazos River Authority, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Department of Public Safety Highway Troopers, Lipan City Marshal, Fire Marshal’s Office, District Attorney’s Office, Hood County Emergency Management, Texas Emergency Medical Services, Pecan Emergency Medical Services, Granbury Volunteer Fire Department, North Hood County Volunteer Fire Department, Cresson Volunteer Fire Department, Decordova Volunteer Fire Department, Indian Harbor Volunteer Fire Department, Lipan Volunteer Fire Department, Oak Trail Shores Volunteer Fire Department, Pecan Volunteer Fire Department and Tolar Volunteer Fire Department.

The ECC answers all 9-1-1, 10-digit emergency and non-emergency calls for police, fire and EMS.  Our goal is to meet the National Emergency Number Association’s standards to answer 90% of calls within 10 seconds or less.  In 2021, the ECC answered 29,798 emergency calls and 75,795 non-emergency calls resulting in 81,827 calls for service.  The average answer time was 3.82 seconds.  

Our in-house dispatcher training takes approximately 4 to 6 months.  Dispatchers are trained to handle calls from citizens that range from routine non-emergencies to life-threatening emergencies.  They undergo CPR training and complete specialized medical call training to obtain Emergency Medical Dispatch certification.   The ECC has 6 dispatching stations that are equipped with NCT-911 phone systems, TDD/TDY, Text-to-911 (in service since 2012), Voiance Translation services and Spillman Computer Aided Dispatch systems. At the end of training, each trainee must be certified as a:

  • Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Telecommunications Officer
  • Emergency Medical Dispatch (ProQA)
  • Texas Law Enforcement Telecommunications System User

The ECC is responsible for the county application of the L3 Harris P25 Truncheon radio system.  This includes the maintenance, installation and updates to 3 radio tower locations and 200 mobile and hand-held radios. 

EVERBRIDGE EMERGENCY NOTIFICATIONS

Everbridge Emergency Notification Sign Up

Hood County uses Everbridge to provide both critical and non-critical information to its residents in real time. Hood County will issue informational messages via phone call, text message and email. Notification preferences can be made by logging in to your Everbridge account.  Hood County will send messages to individuals, groups, or neighborhoods to keep citizens informed before, during and after critical events. Everbridge allows us the ability to notify the entire county, or specific residents in a targeted area of the emergency situation.