People that join the field of Public Safety are people who care about others and are dedicated to helping mankind. They are very caring people who thrive on a daily basis to help everyone they come in contact with on the phone and radio. The dispatcher’s responsibility is to get help to the caller as soon as possible whether it is a police, medical, or fire department call. You can have all the training you need and then some, but you will never have enough when a category 5 hurricane is coming into your county. The dispatchers that were scheduled to work when Hurricane Katrina was estimated to make landfall, had a huge burden on their shoulders, to take care of the citizens in their responding area and to know they had to leave their families and friends at home to do the job they were trained for. Can you imagine what is was like for these dispatchers when the phone rings and the caller advises what the emergency is, and you cannot do anything to help them because your agency has been placed it lockdown until the storm passes. The callers are frantic and in need of help and all you can do is have compassion and sympathy for their cries for help. You try to encourage and pray with them to hang on and the storm will soon pass. These were calls that went on for several hours that the dispatcher had to adhere to. They never complained they stayed at their post and answered the phone calls one after another trying to encourage every caller to hang on it will be over soon and last but not least say a prayer for all. On behalf of the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials we say thank you, for an excellent job performance and exemplary dedication to the field of telecommunications. We say a prayer for all public safety officials dedicated to their profession.