GARVIN COUNTY, OK - The new Garvin County enhanced 911 call center officially opened and began taking calls Wednesday, and while 911 officials say it's been a long journey they're excited to see how much of a difference the new system will have in emergency situations.

"It's been two and half years, and it feels good," enhanced 911 Coordinator Diann Williams says.

Williams says she's been working to bring the E-911 system to Garvin County since early 2008 just a year after residents approved the tax for both land lines and cell phones to fund the system.

"They don't have to call or have your dispatcher call this dispatcher to send this their fire department, then call this dispatcher, we're all in one area. If we're all dispatched out of one office we can get anyone in the county rolling to help anybody else in the county," Williams says.

Now with state-of-the-art equipment and dispatchers in place for the first time all emergency responders in the county will rely on one dispatching center. Williams says the system is programmed with several things to make communications between dispatchers and emergency responders faster.

"Actually when a call comes in it will pop up the page number in the map book in case they have trouble finding it we can tell them to turn to so and so page and they will have the book in the car with them making it easier to find."

Right now the center is receiving calls from all county residents except those inside the Pauls Valley city limits and is only equipped to map calls from land lines, but will be able to map cell phone calls by the middle of September.

Wayne Mikel says he hopes the e-911 system will give residents peace of mind

"The goal is to help the community. That's what we're here to do, that's what they voted for the 911 system for, that's what we're being paid to do is get them the help."

Williams says in the future the enhanced 911 system could even include text messaging and video camera capabilities.