The County Warning Point serves as the Communications Center for Okaloosa County Department of Public Safety's Emergency Management Office, EMS and for fourteen fire departments in the county.

The Communication Center shares E 9-1-1 answering with the Okaloosa Sheriff's Department in a cooperative effort. Calls answered are then routed to the appropriate agency for the reported incident. This cooperative effort benefits the callers by making more operators available to handle incoming emergencies.

When accessing the Enhanced 9-1-1 system for an emergency, the caller should be able to provide the location or address of the emergency, the nature of the emergency, the telephone number they are calling from. After this information is obtained immediate assistance can be sent to the location. Depending on the nature of the emergency other questions will be asked. We request that you stay on the line so that we can assist you in providing pre-arrival instructions to assist in handling the emergency even prior to the first units arriving.

Employees of the Communications Center can provide pre-arrival instructions for various medical emergencies thus providing immediate intervention for cardiac arrests, choking, child birth, severe bleeding and other injuries.

The Communication Center also provides immediate severe weather warnings and notifications to schools, hospitals, assisted living facility and to the State Warning Point and National Weather Service.

The Center utilizes state of the art communication equipment, computer aided dispatch, telephone devices for the deaf and other industry standard technologies to assist in the appropriate and timely dispatching of resources to incidents within the county.