This Is Bull****…. Let me explain first and foremost:

    I’m not criticising the work of the Fort Smith Police Department nor the Fire Department investigation. They did their job in the investigation.

    My hat is off to the 911 operators (Telecommunicators) because they really had a tough time that night, beyond words could describe, but not taking anything away from the first responders, police, and fire departments.

    This was a rough situation caused by mother nature and the situation was made a LOT worse by a woman who decided two weeks earlier to quit her job. On the last night she was scheduled to work, she didn’t know how bad it was, nor how to handle. I get that. And before anyone starts, no, sometimes you can’t see how deep the water is at night when there’s not enough light. That’s why they tell you when in doubt, “turn around, don’t drown.”

    However, to literally hear a woman begging for her life as it is fleeting away faster than she can breath in, this dispatcher acted petty, unprofessional, and disrespectful to a situation that was already terrible. She didn’t even show an ounce of compassion toward another living (slowly dying) human being is just wrong, borderline evil. Even to the point of telling this poor woman to “shut up.” Satan, himself, would be laughing. It is my belief that she could have reduced the panic that the victim was experiencing had she used better judgement and chose her words more wisely during this conversation. It may have even saved the trapped drivers life long enough for when the first responders to rescue her. Might even talked her out of her car and inspired her to have a fighting chance.

    When I first heard the call when it was released to the public, it made me sick in my stomach. In my radio career, I’ve gotten phone calls from people during the worst times of their lives and all they wanted was someone to listen to them, to talk with, to help understand why whatever was happening happened. From breakups to deaths, frustrated from job losses, to drunks talking about cheating partners, I’ve heard it all. So to a point, I can say that, without a doubt, every person calling in could be the real deal and it should be treated as such with compassion, dignity, and respect as a human being. Just because you are having a bad day or you don’t like your supervisors, doesn’t mean you get to take it out on innocent and needy people. I don’t care who the hell you think you are!

    Any of my emergency friends on here can correct me if I am wrong, please educate me. All I can think about is how I would like my last few minutes to be if I was in the victim’s shoes. Think about it, the last voice she heard on this earth (besides her own) was a job-hating spiteful woman on the other end of the line telling her to “shut up” and “this will teach you next time don’t drive in the water…how you didn’t see it, you had to go right over it” as she is gasping for her final breath when the water is rushing in. That still breaks my heart to think that is the last thing this woman will ever hear in this plain of existence. I wonder how this former dispatcher would feel if that was the last words she heard as she was leaving this world? Again, it’s heartbreaking to think this is what is heard from someone who is supposed to be there to help you in your time of need.

    I don’t know the woman who passed on, nor her family members, but I would hope that God is taking good care of them and giving them the comforting peace they need during this time of year.

    As for the former dispatcher, I don’t wish ill-will on her because I have to believe that if she does have a conscious (admitted she felt bad for how she treated the victim), she should use this dark chapter to turn her life around to the point it compares to being a Nun. She should also apologize to the family members of the woman with the purest sincerity from what is left in her heart, if she hasn’t done so yet. She owes the family that much at least. My best advice to her is to stay away from customer service, phone-oriented consulting, and emergency service jobs because she has failed to show compassion toward her fellow human beings.

KFSM Channel 5 – https://5newsonline.com/2019/12/20/fort-smith-dispatcher-cleared-of-wrongdoing-in-debbie-stevens-case/?fbclid=IwAR3zhbKuV4oUMQ8bbijHBgRYdavWdAuPtQXrhH9qNlz7tYLcXm1zy9-sR7Q

    Although many people outside of areas outside of Northwest Arkansas most likely won’t lose their network affiliate channels (ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, & NBC – although ABC and CW can be obtained with at least a speaker wire in Poteau), this is a good thing! These Local broadcasters will actually have to step up their game to be on Satellite (Directv, Dish Network, Orby, and FTA), but of course, the costs will be passed onto the market wanting to have their channels added. Although, it should be noted that Orby doesn’t currently offer local channels at the moment and depending on where you are in the US, you might get local on FTA satellite. The Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization (STELAR) allows satellite companies to deliver distant television stations (mostly from New York or Los Angeles) into homes, instead of the local broadcast stations that provide critical news and weather updates.

    Yes, it was nice to have the channels in your market to be on satellite, but not everyone live in a market that had a local TV channel that represented the network. If you looked at your bill, you are paying, on average, anywhere from $5.00 to $7.00 for that no matter how many channels there are. In local markets such as Fort Smith, you might get six channels. In Oklahoma City, you get about 10 channels, which seems like a better deal for that price, in my opinion. However, YOU are paying for the retransmission. Don’t get me started about getting True HD signal because you aren’t, plain and simple. Anytime a signal is relayed (re-broadcasted) in a compressed format (and sometimes depending on encryption), you aren’t getting 1080 anything. The only way you will get to experience true HD on satellite is if you have a BUD (Big Ugly Dish) that receives the signal from the actual source or if you receive a signal over-the-air from your local network station that broadcasts in full HD. So yeah, you are getting scammed there too. That’s a whole other subject for a different day.

    Fortunately, this won’t affect small dish owners unless they are from the dozen markets that are covered by STELAR and happen to be trapped during severe weather, or should I say severe weather affects those on small dishes. Directv, Dish Network, and Orby are transmitted on a 32 channel KU Band satellite using a low power on a narrow signal. With that framework in mind, these satellite providers pack in thousands of TV stations, all compressed together like particle board. Don’t believe me? Go see for yourself at once of the websites used to keep track of all this at Lyngsat to see one of the satellites located at 110 degrees. There are several other satellites that dish network own scattered about the clouds. That’s why you sometimes get loss of signal when the wind blows if your dish isn’t bolted to the framework of your house. You also lose signal connection when a cloud comes between the satellite and your dish. Hence bad weather reception. Therefore, you still lose connection most of the time when severe weather occurs while you are trying to watch “local” broadcasters meteorologist explain the weather development on tv.

    Don’t take this as me saying “Stick with cable”, because that is far away from what I am saying. Cable companies (some owned by AT&T / Directv A.K.A. Comcast) will use this as a marketing tool to get back some of those cord cutters who abandoned ship so long ago because of high prices. Still don’t believe me, Comcast recently announced that starting the middle of 2020, they would sell “smaller packages” that offer strictly local channels So in a way, AT&T (Directv & Comcast) already planned it. Good marketing strategy on their part, I will give them that. It just goes to show they had this planned from the beginning.

    Now, let’s get back to local broadcasters for a moment, what does this mean for our “local channels” from the shire (A.K.A. Northwest Arkansas)? Well, from this point of view, it means they have to step up their game and provide more than just network content if they want to stay relevant to the satellite companies and viewers. Now why would I say that if most markets who have their local channels re-broadcasted on satellite under a different agreement called the “Satellite Home Viewer Extension and Reauthorization Act” (SHVERA ? Because my friends, of an old cliche, this is a gateway to making that change soon too. STELA was offered on C-Band BUD for a while until the number of DBS subscribers outnumbered the BUD subscribers. However, if you had KU band, you didn’t need to pay for the distant networks, so it worked out. So, with that in mind, couldn’t one say that it would be possible for the same thing to happen to these local channels? Heck, I’m still able to watch the networks among other channels on FTA! You would be surprised what you pay for on cable that is free online (legally) and on C & KU Bands. In fact, you should be pissed off at that alone.

    With the way technology is going today, most local tv stations are streaming their newscasts and live coverage of news events. You want network news? FTA or internet streaming / Roku. Want your cable or tv stations? there are many internet alternative providers out there like Sling (Dish Network), AT&T (Directv), Philo, and a few other small subscription providers online. But if you want your ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC, ect…, then get a 90cm dish (KU band) or at least a 4-foot dish (C-Band), Mpeg 2 or Mpeg 4 receiver, and sites like Lyngsat.com is all you need. However, you will find much more than what is listed on Lyngsat. Unfortunately there are a LOT of “scrambled” cable channels, but they aren’t all the time!

Politico – https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/20/broadcasters-tv-lobbying-wars-088803

NAB – https://www.nab.org/documents/advocacy/STELA/stelarOneSheeter.pdf

Multi-Channel – https://www.multichannel.com/news/stelar-to-sunset-dec-31

Lyngsat – https://www.lyngsat.com/packages/Dish-USA-110W.html

Gov Info – https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRPT-113srpt322/html/CRPT-113srpt322.htm