by Nick Delgado

Guam - It's a very heated situation for the Guam Fire Department. It may be the lifeline for all emergency communications, but it's not an emergency to fix the problem there.

For a state of the art Homeland Security Office of Civil Defense, it appears repairing the air conditioning system in the E-911 Center is proving to be a monumental task. Supervisor Lt. Phil Camacho said, "The facilities the air conditioning system has not been fixed yet."

The air conditioning system at the nerve center for all emergency communications has been on the blink. It started several months ago when the main A/C went out. Instead of ordering new parts then, the decision was made to use parts from the backup A/C. And now both are broken. Committee chair on Public Safety Senator Adolpho Palacios said, "I heard about that problem since early this year."

There's been no air conditioning in the windowless basement at the Civil Defense fortress where E-911 since the end of June. The sweltering temperatures left GFD seeking a cooler location.

"We brought them up here because of the health and welfare of our personnel here we didn't want them to start getting sick because of the lack of circulation, lack of air conditioning the heat," said Camacho.

A move that took more than one million dollars several years ago took about 24 hours for GFD to move to the redundant or backup location at the Dededo Fire Station. According to Camacho e911 was up and running in Dededo by 6pm Friday. "So there was never a break in service to the people of Guam," he said.

We should note GFD is unable to record any of their phone calls which was usually done at Civil Defense. Likewise their automatic location identifier system isn't automatic anymore, dispatchers are now having to type phone numbers into a laptop in order to get the addresses of the emergency call.

Its an agency tasked with taking phone calls that make the difference between life and death, but left finding someplace else to do its job. Palacios said, "Just the fact that its 911 people don't call 911 if its not emergency so by the very nature and so people in responding responsible position that has to dial 911 we have to take this seriously and I cannot believe that's its been located temporarily because the air conditioning situation," he said.

According to Homeland Security PIO Aylssa , the vendor is working on a temporary fix to get the A/C up and running. A purchase order for the new parts has been in place, however, they are waiting for the parts to come in. Homeland can't give a definitive time on when it'll be up, but they are doing everything to expedite the process.