RPM3311 said:
speaking of the Empire State Building, how often is do companies get dispatched there? From what I've been told it wasn't uncommon for companies to go to the WTC multiple times in one shift.
Empire State gets 3 and 2. Depending on what we had at the Trade Center, dictated the assignment. It was either 1 and 1, or 3 and 2. I knew the two boxes for the Twin Towers within 2 weeks of getting transferred to Manhattan. The Empire State took about a month to memorize.
As far as the information that is sent to units, as my colleague (and former student) Bill said, is pretty much dead on. We get an address of a building, or an intersection. We enter that address into the computer, and get a Box number which coincides to a street corner near the address, or intersection. The box number for that location tells us what units go, by distance from that point on the map.
It is sent to the companies via a teletype circuit. If there is information on a building that the firefighters are responding to, or a building within three doors on either side, the dispatchers know it, but the firefighters only get that info on the teletype ticket if it is for the address they are going to. I hope this explains it to you without giving away too much.