From the Office of DeKalb County Sheriff Nick Welden:

FORT PAYNE, Ala. - On Monday, November 13th, DeKalb County Sheriff's Office and 911 merge communications!  This starts a new era of Dispatch.  This has been in the works for approximately two years.  It's a must do and will benefit not only First Responders but all the people of DeKalb County, from, our citizens, to people just passing through who may need emergency personnel.

With the way the communication process is set up now, valuable time is lost.  This will cut out the delay time that we currently deal with and will no doubt speed up response time in critical and life threating situations. 

This has not been an easy process by any means.  A lot of leg work has gone into this, from ALL emergency personnel, the 911 Director, 911 Board, County Administrator, DeKalb County Commissioners and Commission president Ricky Harcrow.  There are simply too many people to list who have gone above and beyond to gather data, run scenarios and express the benefits of this new County Dispatch Program.  When you have this many people and kind of support, there is no doubt it WILL BE SUCCESSFUL!

I wish I could say it will be a completely smooth transition, but no doubt their will be some bumps in the road to smooth out, but in time it will be right where it needs to be.

On top of this, the DeKalb County EMA, DeKalb County Commission and our office have been able to acquire lots of new communication equipment from grant funds and will now only add to the positions of the new DeKalb County / 911 Dispatch Program.

I really look forward to working with 911 Director Sabrina Dobbins and putting DeKalb County Communication where it belongs and that's at its BEST.

"God Bless!" Concluded Sheriff Welden.