It’s National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, and it’s as good a time as any — and any time is a good time — to thank a 911 dispatcher.

According to a story in today’s edition of The News, Alpena County dispatchers last year handled nearly 20,000 calls for service, counting only calls resulting in a dispatcher sending responders. The actual number of phone calls could be two or even three times that many.

Among the calls:

∫ 644 calls about stray dogs, loose horses, or similar concerns.

∫ 636 calls about suspicious situations

∫ 600-plus calls for wellness checks

∫ More than 500 calls for property damage crashes, not including those that caused injury.

An average of once a day, someone called central dispatch when confronted with a situation they simply didn’t know how to handle, from a fallen tree branch that smashed their roof to a cat stuck in a tree.

Nowadays, we take for granted that we can dial three digits on our phone and get someone on the other end who will send help our way.

But that work begins with a trained dispatcher who knows how to listen and calmly react to make sure the right help gets to the right place as quickly as possible.

We say thanks to every emergency dispatcher reading this, and urge all of our readers to join us in expressing your gratitude for the work those important folks do.