Eugene Police, Eugene Springfield Fire EMS, and Central Lane 911 employees have been finding their way in to work and answering the community’s many needs during the icy, winter weather. The City’s public safety responders are being creative in their response and using what resources and staffing they can to answer calls related to the weather, injuries, exposure, transportation, and roadway issues. There is an almost triple increase in call volume for Eugene Springfield Fire EMS. Eugene Springfield Fire EMS crews are partnering with agencies and local hospitals to respond to injuries and falls, welfare checks, medical issues, and fire calls. ESF has seen record call volumes with 783 incidents and over 1,600 individual unit responses. Sunday and Monday both broke the record for the number of calls in a single day with 281 calls and 316 calls respectively (the previous record was 260). Units have spent over 842 hours responding to incidents. The fall injuries on Monday accounted for 108 calls alone(the normal daily average is 13). ESF is fully staffed and even has a battalion chief in the Central Lane 911 Center to help with the calls stacking up.
Eugene Police has been responding to numerous calls from the public for welfare checks on elderly and other people at special risk of exposure or who may be stranded at home or in buildings. As needed, they redeploy their vehicles along with ESF as community caretaking transportation to get people to warming sites. Officers have also been making sure their fellow 911 center employees are able to get to work, providing round trips for the staff who would otherwise not be able to make it the center. CAHOOTS has not been able to operate due to staffing, and EPD and ESF have picked up those calls as triaged by Central Lane 911.
Central Lane 911 has been handling the enormous increase in ESF calls, as well as rural fire, CAHOOTS, and police calls. Total calls for the 24-hour period on Monday was 2,130. This is compared to the previous Monday of 1,110. comparing last Monday to yesterday. During this burgeoning call volume, CLCC took over responding for South Lane Dispatch last night for seven hours after the service went down. CLCC is being hailed by EPD and ESF responders as the unseen but very much appreciated heroes amid the weather-related issues.
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