Equipment replacement should fix problem

MOSES LAKE - For the second time in just over a week, incoming 911 calls were forwarded on Monday to Grant County's backup emergency dispatch center in Ephrata.

An internal electrical problem triggered a system failure Monday in the Moses Lake-based main center for the Multiagency Communications Center, or MACC, said Sam Lorenz, director of Grant County Emergency Management.

The system was down Monday from 10 a.m. to about 4 p.m., he said.

Equipment is scheduled for replacement to fix Monday's problem, he said.

There is a generator at MACC that turns on automatically if there is a power failure.

But there was about a two-minute delay Monday because of damage to a device that's similar to a battery and gives a generator time to start up without a fluctuation in power, he said.

The backup center at the Grant County Sheriff's Office in Ephrata accepted 911 calls Monday.

Employees with the sheriff's office worked at the backup center until dispatchers from Moses Lake arrived.

Lorenz said the power failure was not from the outside, unlike an earlier power failure at MACC on Jan. 11 that was reportedly caused by a truck sliding into a power pole.

In Quincy, Grant County Fire District No. 3 self-dispatched Monday with its radio and paging system, said Anthony Leibelt, a battalion chief with the fire district.

"Our part went pretty smoothly," Leibelt said. "We're fortunate we can do our own dispatching here if we needed to."

He said he didn't believe the fire district experienced any delays in dispatching.

He said the Ephrata Fire Department was also self-dispatching Monday.

A phone message left Wednesday for a MACC manager wasn't returned. MACC Director Mary Allen was out of town.