Henry Bailey Jr. The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

Would you want first responders rushing to your residence in an emergency to know before arriving that your son has Down syndrome and is allergic to penicillin or that your daughter was blind and dependent on a seeing-eye dog? Or that your elderly granddad has to use a wheelchair and keeps an oxygen bottle in his guesthouse bedroom in the back?

Starting early next year, dispatchers across DeSoto will deploy SafeTown, a powerful, user-friendly array of Web-based and mobile apps that will empower residents to share specific-needs information with local law enforcement, firefighters and emergency services — before a crisis occurs.

When a person calls 911, the information they entered earlier is on hand and pops up for the dispatcher, said DeSoto Emergency 911 District executive director Debby Dunnaway. That means responders will arrive immediately prepared to deal with special requirements of the household. We’re really excited about this.

We hope for and expect a lot of community participation, because this system can help save lives, said Chris Shelton, the DeSoto 911 commissioner who urged adoption of SafeTown. The commission this week unanimously approved his motion to authorize installation — at no cost to the county and to citizens using the service.

Shelton, information technology director for Southaven, said SafeTown was offered to the 911 system as part of the maintenance coverage the county has through its Computer-Aided Dispatch or CAD provider, InterAct, a unit of AT&T. The original CAD system cost $1.5 million and was paid for through a grant that Southaven Police received two years ago from the U.S. Justice Department.

We expect to start implementing SafeTown in the first quarter of 2013 at our five PSATs, public-safety answering points or dispatch centers, said Shelton, noting Olive Branch, Southaven, Horn Lake, Hernando and the Sheriff’s Department. The first part available will be the household profile application, and we’ll be getting the word out to the public on how to sign up and submit information.

Shelton said he and other emergency-information officials saw a SafeTown demonstration in September at a meeting in Tunica of the Mississippi 911 Coordinators group and we were really impressed. The system then was reviewed by the DeSoto 911 panel’s PSAT equipment committee: Shelton, Hernando Police Chief Mike Riley and Greg Phillips, communications manager for Olive Branch.

Phillips said DeSoto’s resident-input capability with SafeTown will be a statewide first: We’re just the third area to get it. It’s already in use in Anderson, S.C.; and Reading, Pa., and garnering positive reviews.

Other applications eyed for installation are community alerts, which will let people check for traffic accidents and learn about safety issues reported by neighbors, and the report a problem app, allowing for communitywide notice of trees down, suspicious activities, lost dogs and missing people.

It’s really going to be a benefit to the citizens, said Dunnaway.   

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