Join us for a Workspace event

Join us for a workspace event at the Caldwell Workspace, 110 South Main, in Caldwell. We’ll be there from 1:30 to 3:30p.m. on March 1.

Do you feel you aren’t qualified to be a 911 Dispatcher? Don’t judge yourself to harshly…you may be the lifesaver we need! View the flyer for more information. We hope to see you there!

More trivia

In 1996…

…One of the worst blizzards hit the northeast killing more than 150 people. Philadelphia received a record 30.7 inches of snow, New York City closed it’s public schools for the first time in 18 years, and the federal government in Washington D.C. closed for several days.

…The American Embassy in Athens, Greece came under mortar fire

…A “nail bomb” exploded at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta killing one person and injuring 111

…The remains of a man who lived 8,000 to 9,000 years ago were discovered in Kennewick, Washington and were named the “Kennewick Man”

…Incumbent Democratic President Bill Clinton defeated Republican challenger Bob Dole, former Kansas Senator

…and if this were 1996, I would email this info to you on my brand new Hotmail account (how many of you still have Hotmail? I know one!) or posted it on MySpace, both of which were established in 1996.

…and data sent back by the Galileo space probe indicated there may be water on one of Jupiter’s moons.

More about 1996

In 1996, Sumner County Emergency Communications made county maps for response agencies as the county addressing system had recently been established with roads assigned names. The plotter, used to make the maps, was a pen and ink plotter that printed little dots that eventually formed lines, labels, and graphics. It would take 8 hours to make one 36″ X 36″ map as the little pen tirelessly tapped ink onto paper.

Our audio logger/recorder was state of the art…it recorded telephone and radio traffic on slow speed VHS tapes that held 24 hours worth of data. A new tape had to be inserted into the logger daily, and subsequently to save one years worth of information, we had to store 365 VHS tapes.

Also that year, the minimum wage was raised to $4.75 an hour and a loaf of bread was about 97 cents. The average price of gasoline was $1.23/gallon.

The Fox News Network began broadcasting, and the summer Olympics began in Atlanta.

Also that year…

The Southern Transcon is one of the nation’s busiest rail corridors and connects Los Angeles and southern California with Chicago, IL. The Southern Transcon is operated by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway Co., and runs through Sumner County with 90 to 100 trains each day.

Before it was BNSF, it was the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe (AT&SF) Railway, but in 1996, the AT&SF merged with the Burlington Northern Railway Co. to become BNSF. As of 2009, the BNSF has 32,500 miles of track in 28 states.

Also that year, their Royal Highnesses, Prince Charles and Princess Diana of Wales divorced at the High Court of Justice in London.

In 1996, there were only about 100,000 websites, and “Ask Jeeves” was the fictional valet for the search engine ask.com, compared to over 2 billion (about 400 million active) websites today. We didn’t have a website then…but we do now. Check us out at www.sumnercounty911.org.

1996 Open House

On opening day, Sumner County Emergency Communications hosted an open-house and gave tours to the public so they could see their brand new Communications Center. We had hoped to have an open-house for our anniversary, but unfortunately the COVID pandemic halted that.

Also on February 10, 1996, the IBM Supercomputer “Deep Blue” defeated Chess Champion Garry Kasparov for the first time.

Later in the year, Nintendo released it’s newest video game, Nintendo 64. If you have fond memories of it, you can buy one new, in the unopened box, on Ebay here. https://www.ebay.com/i/264984403226?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28

Landline vs Cell Phone

In 1996, about 75% of 9-1-1 calls came from landline, hardwired telephones. Only 25% came from cell phones, in fact, cell phones were not even capable of being routed through 9-1-1 lines yet; if you called 9-1-1 on a cell phone, the call was routed to a ten digit number, with no data sent to the dispatcher as to who you were or what your location was.

Today, over 80% of all 9-1-1 calls come from cell phones, with only about 15% coming from landline telephones. The rest come from VoIP phone, PBX systems, and the like.

Also in 1996, “Dolly the Sheep” was the first mammal to be successfully cloned (See Wikipedia), and President Bill Clinton gave a 4 1/2 hour videotaped testimony on the Whitewater controversy.

Still humming the Macarena, aren’t you?