A vital link in Douglas County’s 911 system is dying, and a $31,000 transplant won’t arrive until later this week.

The failing device: a controller that serves as the “brain” for all telephone-transmitted data services into the county’s emergency dispatch center, said Jim Denney, director of emergency communications. Without it, dispatchers no longer could receive immediate notification of a caller’s address.

So far, the imminent equipment failure isn’t slowing emergency response times for police, sheriff, fire and ambulance services, Denney said.

Dispatchers simply dispatch services by voice instead of computer, and address information appears on dispatchers’ screens within five seconds.

But officials don’t want things getting any worse.

“It’s grinding to a halt,” Denney said of the controller.

Monday morning, Douglas County commissioners approved the emergency purchase of a new controller from 911 Inc., of Denver. County Administrator Craig Weinaug had authorized the purchase Friday, and the company immediately went to work building a new one.

The existing controller was installed four years ago but suffered damage from concrete dust and soil particles kicked up during recent renovations at the Judicial & Law Enforcement Center.

Commissioners wasted no time approving the replacement but plan to spend more time figuring out who’s to blame for the problem.

Other sensitive equipment had been removed from the room, for example, to prevent such problems.

“We should have done a better job, somehow, of managing the situation,” Commissioner Charles Jones said.

Denney said the new equipment should be in place by the end of the week. If the controller fails before then, calls would be routed through the county’s backup communications center, at Kansas University.