By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson's fire and police departments have had to handle COVID-19, but they are still doing okay for personnel at this point.
"We did run into some issues here within the department in the past months with people contracting COVID on the department," said Hutchinson Fire Chief Steven Beer. "We dealt with that, but it hasn't wiped out my workforce like I anticipated it could have. We're not doing a lot of community engagements and stuff. We're trying to keep the fire stations clean, because these guys and gals take enough risks on a daily basis just going on these calls with sick individuals."
Police Chief Jeff Hooper noted one particular area where they have struggled.
"I have not had one of my officers that has had COVID," Hooper said. "We have had several that have been exposed and have been tested and been out of work for a few days pending those tests. Where we have been hit has been in our dispatch communications center. I believe I've got two dispatchers out right now with COVID and then we've also had others that have been exposed and been out for a significant period of time."
The dispatch situation may even result in an operational change, if it becomes necessary.
"They can't really social distance," Hooper said. "Those employees are fairly close together. We're currently operating out of our backup site because of the renovation at the police department. That's even a more confined space. Right now, we're actually looking at some solutions to probably spin up a secondary backup site."
This might be needed if the site they are at needs cleaning if exposure is found to have happened there and to allow them to go back and forth if necessary.