LAKE CITY, Fla. (WCJB) – The Lake City Fire Department and Police Department are now integrated into the Columbia County Emergency Management System, which is designed to speed up response times for emergency responders.

This is thanks to a new computer-aided planning CAD system.

“I think this is the best thing this county has done for public safety in a long time,” said Thomas Brazil, director of Columbia County 911.

Previously, 911 dispatchers working for the county had to forward calls to dispatchers working for Lake City.

“It creates situational awareness, there’s no delay. If something were to happen, say, God forbid, an officer gets injured or something, all they have to do is contact emergency services and say, hey, send an ambulance to this location,” Brazil said.

Now that they are all based on one system, dispatchers say they are much more relaxed, knowing they can route calls more quickly.

“Most of the time, we would sometimes have an angry caller on the phone who lived in town, and we would either have to call one of our partners for help or we would have to handle several things at once,” said 911 dispatcher John Markmiller.

Markmiller has worked as a dispatcher for eight years and says the job was more difficult before the merger.

“Working in the dispatch center is really stressful,” Markmiller said. “When you have someone on the phone who really needs help and is yelling at you, and it’s not necessarily that they’re yelling at you, but they’re just upset about the situation they’re in. That increases our anxiety.”

Because everyone works together in the joint operations center, people only have to explain their story once, not three times.

“When you call 911, you think you’re going to get help right away. When there’s a delay in getting the help you need, it can be frustrating for the caller. That’s why I’m glad we have the resources we need right there on the scene,” said 911 dispatcher Crystal Craig.

As part of the merger, the district took over 12 additional dispatchers from the city, so that the total number is now 39.

Levy, Alachua and Union counties all have unified CAD systems. In Marion County, officials are hoping for an improved CAD system that will allow fire and police departments to communicate with AdventHealth following the fatal bus crash that killed 8 people.

RELATED: Marion County pushes forward with modernization of CAD system after fatal bus accident

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