News Photo by Julie Riddle Dispatcher Tess Alder navigates multiple keyboards at the 911 dispatch desk at the Presque Isle County Sheriff’s Office in Rogers City on Thursday.

ALPENA — It’s the middle of the night, and the phone keeps ringing.

At the Presque Isle County Sheriff’s Office, 911 dispatchers on the overnight shift gaze at glowing screens in a dark room, asking questions of the frazzled people on the other end of the line.

At 2 a.m. on Thursday of National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, it’s business as usual, calls coming in and help going out while dispatchers juggle a dozen jobs at once.

“A dispatcher answers the call,” said Tess Alder, dispatcher and corrections officer for the county. “That’s the most simple way to put it.”

Alder and Scott Arkwood, her partner for the night, are two of the dozen dispatchers/corrections officers who tend the county’s phones, where 600 emergency calls land most months.

Five dispatchers field 300 to 500 calls per month in Montmorency County, more in the summer. In Alcona County, six full-time and one part-time 911 dispatchers respond to flurries of intense activity between long periods of down time.

Alpena County’s nine full-time dispatchers are on duty, two at a time, around the clock, responding to 70 calls a day.

During the day, the Presque Isle County Sheriff’s Office bustles with officers, visitors to the jail, and other passers-by.

In the middle of the night, though, there’s only the dispatchers — the dispatchers, and the callers who need them.

Scientists say it’s not really possible to multitask, Arkwood has heard.

They’re wrong, he said, pointing to the dispatcher’s desk, packed with 12 computer screens, four keyboards, and five mice, with two foot pedals below.

“I’m the octopus at the wheel,” Alder said, reaching for a mouse.

Police voices pop over a speaker, calling in their location and status.

If she doesn’t hear from officers often enough as they make their nighttime rounds, she sends the cavalry, Alder said.

Many callers call Arkwood by his first name. In a rural county, callers are family — either figuratively or, once in a while, literally.

There’s no being prepared for that moment, Arkwood said. Dispatchers have no choice, though, but to let their training kick in and do their job.

A gentle night can get heated in a hurry when panicked people start screaming into her ear, Alder said.

Callers can be desperate, she understands that. Perhaps they’re trapped after a rollover, or their loved one isn’t breathing, and their fear and fury are hurled through the phone lines.

She can’t holler back. A dispatcher has to be the calm that reaches through the chaos so she can send help, Alder said.

She asks question after question, probing for details needed in the moment. Sometimes callers don’t understand. Often, they’re abusive, berating the dispatcher for not fixing everything instantly.

It’s cliche, but it’s true, Arkwood said — dispatchers interact with people on the worst day — or night — of their lives.

A night shift call can be anything: drunk drivers, domestic violence, suicide attempts, drug-induced seizures, car/deer crashes. Alder answers a lot of midnight calls from older people who have fallen on the way to the bathroom.

Arkwood remembers the structure fire called in at 2:30 a.m. that kept him busy until his shift ended. That didn’t stop a medical call and two breaking-and-enterings that all came in at the same time.

A former paramedic and firefighter, Alder has talked terrified callers through CPR on a loved one until help arrived.

“It’s you. You have to do this,” she tells them.

She’s heard a fire crackling in the background as a caller watched her house burn down.

She’s heard callers plead for the ambulance to hurry as their loved ones faded.

Arkwood has been on the other side of that phone call. The wait for help as he held his not-breathing son was “the longest three-and-a-half minutes of my life,” he said.

Dispatchers answer a lot of unintentional dials, too, even on the night shift. (“Don’t hang up,” Arkwood pleaded.)

Calls don’t all have happy endings. Dispatchers have to move on to the next call, though. Otherwise, Alder said, the job breaks you.

They hurt alongside someone watching their life fall apart and hold out a lifeline for a caller hiding from a burglar. They’ll even look up a phone number, if that’s what someone needs, Arkwood said.

“That’s our job,” Alder said. “Our job is to help people.”