WAMPSVILLE — The winter storm that blew through Erie County left emergency responders scrambling and when asked for help fielding 911 calls, Madison County did what it could to help out its fellow emergency workers to the west. When the New York State 911 Coordinator in Albany sent a request across the state on Monday, Dec. 26, for help for Erie County, Frank McFall Jr., the Madison County director of 911, said Madison County didn’t hesitate to offer its services.

“Erie County had a number of calls holding in their system because they couldn’t get responders to those locations,” McFall said. “So we were tasked with calling them back and seeing if the situation got better or worse. This way, Erie County could update their system and see what they needed to respond to and what they could remove.”

McFall said these weren’t live calls, but — because of the intensity of the storm — part of a backlog of calls going as far back as Christmas Eve.

“These calls were all over in severity, from true medical emergencies like chest pains to needing assistance with medication or cold exposure from being out in the storm,” McFall said. “We saw everything from severe calls to just needing assistance.”

McFall continued, saying that this is the first time the Madison County has offered assistance in this capacity and was thankful for the advanced technology in place that made it fast and easy to assist.

“It was a very unique situation,” he said. “Erie County sent us a list of everything that was in their system and as we were updating it, they could see the live feed as things were designated higher or lower priority or just cancelled in real time. That kind of technology isn’t something we would have had when I started in 2003.”

McFall has been in his position as director for three and a half years, but has been with Madison County for 19 total — much of that in capacity as a 911 dispatcher and a senior dispather.

And in his entire time working 911, McFall said he had never seen anything like this before.

“From what I saw on a report the Erie County emergency manager gave, they were getting dozens a call a minute and in our line of work, that’s crazy,” McFall said. “Most places take two to three calls a minute, depending on the situation. Erie County was getting more than 20 calls a minute based on this report. And Erie County has a large 911 center. If they were clogged up, the calls must have been nonstop.”

“I can’t even begin to imagine what the 911 dispatchers were going through at that time,” he added.