ROBERTSDALE, Ala. — The calls come in to the small second-floor office in Robertsdale. Someone is in trouble and needs help. Now.

They are calling 911.

If the caller lives in a community of Baldwin County that has its own fire or police force, the emergency call is automatically routed to them. All other non-fire or medical emergency calls go to the Baldwin County Sheriff's Office Communications Center.

The call may be “routine,” when one reads the dry language of the published log, but to the dispatcher who takes the call, each call presents different challenges.

“It’s never the same,” said Nancy Sheetz, the Senior Communications Officer at the Sheriff's Office. Sheetz has been with the department for 16 years, and in the dispatch office for the past 15 years.

According to Sheriff Huey “Hoss” Mack, dispatchers are on duty … “24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Presently the (dispatch) Officers handle about 75,000 calls for service per year. They provide the link between the public and Deputies when an emergency arises.”

While some calls make members of the 12 full-time member department’s blood race, some are downright funny.

Sheetz still smiles when she recalls one call, about a gentleman who was unhappy about a neighbor’s chickens in his garden.

“He had spent a great deal of money on the flower bed, and the chickens were messing it all up,” said Sheetz.

While dispatch did send a deputy out to talk to the disgruntled gardner and the the chickens’ owner, the gardner was madder than a well … wet hen.

“There was very little we could do to make him happy,” said Sheetz. “We just kept talking to him.”

Laughs aside, the calls that come through the dispatch office can be serious. And they are changing now that Baldwin County is growing up.

“The most common call we get is a harassment call,” said Sheetz, who added, “We are getting more of those as Baldwin County grows. The houses are closer together now.”

Another sign that Baldwin County is changing comes from Communications Officer Lorraine Marez, who is often called on to handle Spanish-speaking callers.

“It (the number of calls in Spanish) has grown,” said Marez, who added she has been a dispatcher for nearly two years.

“The best part is the excitement,” Marez says. “There is always something new.”

Marez said that there are times when she is on the phone, looking at the computer screen, and communicating with a deputy on another channel.

While experienced dispatchers know all of what Sheetz calls the “pig trails and back ways” to a site, a common question for callers is, “What are the directions to you house,” added Sheetz. She added that whenever possible, dispatchers try to stay with a caller until a deputy arrives.

While talking to a deputy, dispatchers are using their computers to call up information on the site, and are asking callers about weapons, the situation and anything else the deputy may need to stay safe and do his/her job effectively.

“We try to give (the deputy) as much information as we have,” said Sheetz.

Dealing with different personalities is a big part of the job.

“People come from many different walks of life,” said Sheetz. “We just keep asking questions.”

One caller, Sheetz explained, could be screaming “because a dog just dumped over their trash bin,” while Sheetz remembered an eerily calm woman who needed the police at her house, right away.

“It turned out her daughter had been shot,” said Sheetz. “She was trying to stay calm for her daughter.”

And sometimes the calls are personal.

“I took the call when my father-in-law was killed in a wreck,” said Sheetz, explaining that she was alone in the dispatch office when the call came in.

Sheetz says she didn’t know who the car belonged to until she fed the license plate number into her computer and saw who was the registered owner of the vehicle.

“I let the officer know,” said Sheetz. “He said it might not be him.”

The deputy would not confirm the death, Sheetz said, until he knew she was not alone in the office.

The dispatchers worry about the deputies as well. A problem or a bad accident can cause a deputy to lose contact.

“The worst is when we lose communication, and I know my guys are in danger,” said Sheetz. “We can’t see what is going on.”

She added that a dispatcher will keep calling the deputy until they “get an answer or someone confirms they are all right.”

Dispatchers at the Sheriff's Office undergo at least six months of classroom and on the job training with an certified trainer before they solo According to Sheetz, they must also certify in NCIC (National Crimes Information Computer) and certify in a 40-hour APCO (Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International) Public Safety Telecommunicator Class.

“It takes a special person to be a dispatcher,” said Sheetz. “A dispatcher does not show emotion until they put down the phone.”

And they stick together, and talk, becoming an informal support system for each other.

“We’re the heart of the Sheriff's Office,” Sheetz said.

In honor of “National Public Safety Telecommunicator Week,” a week Sheetz says is “dedicated to acknowledge the outstanding job Emergency Communicators (aka dispatchers) do everyday.”

Sheetz says several dispatchers will be receiving certificates and one dispatcher will be receiving “Dispatcher of The Year” honors.