The Houston Emergency Center has been dealing with a new problem:
An air conditioning problem at the Houston Emergency Center has at least one police officer concerned that dispatch calls could be delayed, Local 2 reported Wednesday.
An officer with the Houston Police Department, who asked not to be identified, told Local 2 the public could be put in danger because the department’s computer system is at risk of overheating.
A broken air conditioning unit at the downtown station, which is used to relay information to computers in patrol cars, has the officer concerned that the system could overheat and cause information to not be delivered.
The officer said this issue is only part of a bigger problem.
“If that’s the case then that shows how ancient the system is in there — that you’re depending on a certain temperature to keep your equipment up and running. Somebody has to do something, especially in the age of terrorism. You know that we need those systems up,” the officer told Local 2.
HPD officials told Local 2 that they are cooling the system with large fans and hope to have the air conditioning unit operating again by Thursday.
We may have a tired and worn out emergency response infrastructure, but cheer up — soon we’ll have a beautiful downtown park and some lovely publicly-funded art work!
RELATED: Old, outdated equipment to blame for 911 call center failures (blogHOUSTON), Public safety priorities (blogHOUSTON)
UPDATE: An emailer clarifies the story a bit. The a/c problem is at an older police station, 61 Riesner, not at HEC. I am assuming (always dangerous!) that a computer system used by HEC is located at the station.
