From emergency agencies responding to residents’ homes, to frequently sanitizing their office, the Guthrie County Dispatch staff is taking extra measures to protect their agency partners, residents, and themselves.

The County has four full-time and four part-time dispatcher/jailers who work 24/7 to serve the public, so if one staff member were to show COVID-19 symptoms, it would cause a great detriment to the department. In Chuck and Amy Cleveland’s case they must be especially careful to follow social distancing guidelines, as the married couple comprises half of the full-time staff. When answering calls Chuck says the staff now asks additional questions whether the caller or others in that residence have had a cough, fever, respiratory illness, and they communicate that with the particular responding agency.

While COVID-19 doesn’t stop law enforcement, fire departments, or Emergency Medical Services from responding to an emergency, Chuck says they give callers’ extra guidance, “We try to ask them you know if they’ve got a mask, just to mask up or at least stay far enough away for the six-foot distance so our officers don’t get sick. And a lot of people are very understanding about that too, you know we ask those questions and say, ‘Hey, for your protection and our protection can you mask up or stand a ways away if possible, so we can keep this at bay.’”

Chuck adds that overall he believes the County’s call volume has gone down since concerns of COVID-19 began, which he says might sometimes make a shift more boring, but residents won’t hear any complaints from local departments.