Ashley Luthern, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Wisconsin)

When Milwaukee County dispatcher Daniel Dockerty answers a 9-1-1 call, the people he helps likely don’t know he’s in Waukesha County.

Dockerty has worked out of the Waukesha County Communications Center, usually alongside another Milwaukee 9-1-1 operator, since July 6. That’s the day an electrical fire shut down the Milwaukee County Courthouse and Public Safety Building, where the Milwaukee County 9-1-1 operators and dispatchers are located.

The Milwaukee County operators who answer 9-1-1 calls were sent to Waukesha County. Milwaukee County radio dispatchers, who assign deputies to calls and speak with them over the radio, were sent to the Milwaukee County sheriff’s office substation near the airport, following emergency plans and agreements already in place.

Both remain displaced this week, even though the Public Safety Building reopened last week and parts of the courthouse reopened on Monday.

“There’s no break in service. It works pretty seamlessly,” said Sherri Stigler, training and operations manager at the Waukesha County Communications Center.

Waukesha County has bumped up staffing to 10 dispatchers per day shift compared with the usual eight to nine to help accommodate the influx of calls.

The Waukesha County Communications Center handled 4, 894 emergency calls from noon July 6 to noon Monday, and of those, 2, 215 were Milwaukee County calls.

The agreement between Waukesha and Milwaukee counties does not mention anything about payment or reimbursement for services, said Richard Tuma, director of emergency preparedness in Waukesha County. However, it’s something officials in both counties have they said are willing to explore, he said.

Tuma did not have estimates available for the cost of assisting Milwaukee County during the courthouse complex closure.

“This back-up relationship we have worked well and we expect the same thing if something happens at our site,” Tuma said.

Waukesha County handles dispatching for the City and Town of Brookfield, New Berlin and the Village of Butler, among other agencies. It also receives cellphone calls county-wide.

Although 9-1-1 service hasn’t been disrupted, the move hasn’t been without challenges. The Milwaukee County computer-aided dispatch system remains down, so 9-1-1 operators are contacting dispatchers via radio, said Fran McLaughlin, a sheriff’s office spokeswoman.

“Logistically there’s a few more steps involved, but everyone has stepped it up,” McLaughlin said.

Waukesha County has recorded all Milwaukee County calls in addition to its own, but Milwaukee County can’t retrieve 9-1-1 calls from before July 6 without its dispatch system, McLaughlin said Tuesday.

McLaughlin said she couldn’t recall another recent time when Milwaukee County 9-1-1 operations had been displaced for longer than a day or two.

There isn’t a definitive time when 9-1-1 operations will return to the Public Safety Building, said Brendan Conway, spokesman for County Executive Chris Abele. “It’s all about the power,” Conway said Tuesday. “The 9-1-1 system is fine, it’s operational. If the sheriff had to, if something happened in Waukesha, it could work.”

Three sets of generators are providing power to the Safety Building and the courthouse, which cover about 1.2 million square feet. Surges have made the power in those buildings unreliable, he said.

“People are moving mountains to try to get us here,” Conway said. “Luckily, there is a good plan B in place and the Sheriff’s Department will be fully operational soon.”

Copyright © 2013 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved.