Norwalk Honors Emergency Dispatchers

NORWALK, CT — To honor Norwalk's hard-working emergency dispatchers, the city proclaimed April 11 through April 17 "National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week" in Norwalk during a brief ceremony Tuesday in the combined dispatch center in the Norwalk Police Department.

"You do a remarkable job, day in and day out," Mayor Harry Rilling, a former Norwalk police chief, told the dispatchers. "We want them to know how important they are, and how much we appreciate them."

The Norwalk combined dispatch system, which handles the city's police, fire and emergency medical service emergency calls, deals with an average of 80,000 calls per year, according to supervisor Stacey Lariccia. At least four dispatchers are on-duty at all times, and often five or more are needed.

Dispatchers must make split-second decisions while remaining calm, and those decision often have to be made under the duress of knowing that the caller may be in the midst of the worst day in their life.

During the coronavirus pandemic last year, the overall volume of calls was down because of the lockdown, but in the early weeks of the pandemic, call volume spiked. Most of those calls were coronavirus-related, Lariccia said, which posed their own challenges.

"It was difficult for us, because we had to make sure we were asking all the correct questions during that time," Lariccia said. "So many of the calls were COVID-19-related, and with that added element, we had to make sure the information we relayed helped to keep emergency responders safe, too."