Norman Cuts Ribbon On $20 Million Emergency Operations Center

On Tuesday Norman fire, police, and EMS services unveiled a new emergency communications center in east Norman.

This state-of-the-art facility has been 10 years in the making and will become the new nerve center for Norman emergency services. “It’s an active service,” dispatcher Carolyn Glover said. “It’s to help people.”

Since 1984 Carolyn has worked to help connect people in need with Norman’s first responders. “There’s nothing more satisfying than being able to help somebody in whatever need it may be; something as simple as giving directions or some of the worst days of their lives,” she said.

She’s now the city’s longest-serving 911 dispatcher and today Carolyn and Norman’s 28 dispatchers helped cut the ribbon on the new $20 million facility. “I’ve waited 40 years for this facility,” she said.

It was paid for using federal COVID-19 relief funds and a 2014 Norman public safety sales tax.

The nearly 20,000-square-foot facility includes a 911 dispatch center, an emergency communications center, and an incident command post.

It’s built to withstand more than 200-mile-per-hour winds, because during times like in 2012 when a tornado hit the Norman Police Department, connecting citizens with services is all the more critical. 

“The entire facility is hardened,” Norman Maj. Brent Barbour said. “It’s ready with redundant systems and built to ensure that we are able to operate no matter what mother nature throws at us.”

It’s an upgrade from the current 911 call center located in the basement of the police department affectionately referred to as “the dungeon.”

“We moved from a tiny little closet dispatch center to a larger center, to the basement and now this and this is just… all the technology and everything that goes with it now, I can’t even describe it,” Carolyn said.

“ It just brings me almost to tears,” she said. 

The center is set to become operational next week.