CERRO GORDO COUNTY, IA- This winter weather is creating treacherous travel conditions.
Law enforcement and first response teams are responding to a very busy day. The dispatch center is the central coordinator for the whole system.
They take the calls from the stranded or injured drivers and send assistance their way, and when the weather gets bad, their number of calls goes up.
You see the lights and the patrol cars out and about throughout these snow storms, but what you don't see is the coordinating effort that's keeping everything running.
Dispatch Supervisor, Pam Ricke said, "I think we're the backbone of the department because we receive all the information; we lay all the info we page, we do all the behind scenes work."
Ricke said holidays and bad weather are when they seem to respond to the most incidents.
Ricke said, "when the storms move in it seems our phones start ringing off the wall usually cell phone calls from the interstate, motorist out on the highways."
Dispatchers say they're taking all sorts of calls on this day. There are rollovers and pile-ups and cars simply sliding into ditches, and those who are responding to the calls say dispatch workers play a crucial role in what they do.
Lieutenant Joe Hunt said, "if it wasn't for dispatch we wouldn't know where all these cars are going into the ditch at so obviously people are calling into them, then they send us where we need to go."
Lieutenant Hunt said he usually doesn't go out to accidents, but with this weather he's finding himself on the scene more than once.
Hunt said, "we have too many calls and not enough people to handle them all."
Ricke says sometimes they get calls from folks wanting to know what roads are okay to drive on and if she says travels not advised, it's for a good reason.
Ricke said, "it's usually because we wouldn't be able to get to you if you did get out there and get stuck."
Coming from someone who knows first hand about all those road conditions, Ricke gives this advice.
Ricke said, "travel according to the conditions...because we've had some pretty bad days recently and it's not worth it to be out endangering your life and others so slow down."
Lieutenant Hunt recommends that people stay in doors during Winter storms. He said if you have to go out, to make sure you have a cell phone and emergency kit handy.
