The old wives’ tale “lightning never strikes anything twice” apparently isn’t true for the Spencer County dispatch center.
During the afternoon on July 3rd, lightning struck the center for the second time in almost a decade.
The Indiana Data and Communication System Coordinator for the Spencer County Sheriff’s Office, Jody Meeks, says it made things spark and took down their 911 system.
Dispatchers starting calling officials right away to tell them their systems were down. The coordinator says they were able to contact AT&T and get the calls sent to Warrick County Dispatch.
Unfortunately, Meeks says their radios were heavily damaged.
And according to Meeks, repairing these radios will be quite costly.
Since the insurance company is still inspecting the damage, the dispatch center had to move its operations into a mobile unit provided by Vanderburgh County.
Until their building is repaired, dispatchers will work in the mobile unit.
Meeks says they’re meeting today with engineers from the insurance company to talk about precautions the center can take to prevent this from happening again.
