Excerpts from Story:

911 system needs CPR, say chiefs Fire, police departments complain of bad software, frozen computers

Saturday, January 29, 2000

By James L. Smith and Edward L. Ronders

JOURNAL STAFF WRITERS

Flint Twp. -

Flint Township Fire Chief Greg Wright has unplugged the 911 computers in his fire department headquarters, saying the system is so problem-plagued he'd rather go back to dispatching the old-fashioned way.

And he's told the county 911 center he is doing just that.

Other area police and fire chiefs said they, too, are looking for a lifeboat after years of what they call computer and radio problems at Genesee County's 911 center. ....

The problems range from broken modems and computers that freeze up to an inability to print out fire call information at the stations so firefighters can take it to the scene. .....

Lloyd Fayling, head of the 911 center, blamed the problems on a software program that was not Y2K compliant and the December installation of a quick fix program that so far hasn't been de-bugged....

Acknowledging that some of the fire and police computers are not working, Fayling said technicians are correcting the problems and that he is keeping the chiefs informed of the progress....

Once the computers are running correctly, they will provide a great deal of information not currently available, Fayling said. "We have solid guarantees they will be repaired."

Link to story:

http://fl.mlive.com/news/index.ssf?/news/stories/20000128fcounty911.frm

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 29, 2000

Answers

UPDATE to : "Flint, MI: 911 system needs CPR, say chiefs, Y2K problems cited"

Thursday, February 3, 2000 Y2K bugs plague Genesee 911, cops say

Associated Press

FLINT -- Some police and fire officials in Genesee County are complaining that Y2K-related computer problems with the county's 911 system still causes them hassles.

While the county urges them to remain patient, the chiefs say modems are broken, computers freeze up, they can't print fire call information for firefighters and the equipment that isn't working is overpriced and obsolete.

"The citizens of this county deserve a system that works better than the one we had 20 years ago," said Burton Fire Chief Doug Halstead. So bad are the problems that Flint Township Fire Chief Greg Wright has turned his computer off. Mt. Morris Fire Chief Orville Stephens says the computer at his fire dispatch center hasn't worked right since December.

The problems, said Lloyd Fayling, head of the 911 center, is a software program that isn't Y2K compliant. So far, the program installed in December to fix the Y2K bug hasn't worked right.

The chairman of the county's 911 consortium, Davison Township Supervisor Donald L. Parks, said the complaints are not countywide. The consortium includes representatives from each city, township and village in the county.

"We met with some fire chiefs last week and explained that we had to make some software changes on the fly in December," Parks said. "Those changes have caused us some problems and glitches." The Detroit News, "Technology" section, Michigan htt p://www.detnews.com/2000/technology/0002/03/02030118.htm

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), February 03, 2000.