FRANKLIN COUNTY – For over a decade, dispatchers at the Franklin County Regional Communications Center have brightened the Christmas Eve night shift by sharing a ‘Santa BOLO’ alert over the radio. It has looked and sounded different over the years, but Communications Director Brad Timberlake expects the Santa BOLO to take place again this year.
BOLO stands for ‘Be On the Look Out’, and is often used for public safety alerts relating to persons or vehicles of interest. In the past, the Santa BOLO has alerted public safety officials to the presence of a jolly man with a white beard and twinkling eyes, wearing a bright red suit, operating a sleigh pulled by reindeer. Going by a number of aliases from Santa Claus to Saint Nicholas, the person of interest was reported at the Coburn Gore Port of Entry into the United States, heading south over Route 27. The BOLO further reminded public safety officers to not hinder Santa’s journey of delivering peace, goodwill, and joy to children across the world, and to instead render any assistance necessary for his mission.
Timberlake, who remembers the Santa BOLO from his time at the dispatch center over a decade ago, said that it’s a short three or four minutes that helps brighten a long shift. He feels it brings cheer to people listening, whether that be law enforcement officers, EMS providers, firefighters, children and families of first responders, or community members listening to radio traffic on the scanner. In addition, it can be fun for the dispatchers.
The Santa BOLO is a low priority dispatch and may not be able to happen, depending on the call volume Christmas Eve, but Timberlake hopes the broadcast will take place in the early evening.
“It’s definitely something we want to keep doing. It’s always been well received,” Timberlake said. “It keeps it fun in an environment that’s not always fun.”
Keeping tabs on Santa’s location is nothing new. For nearly seventy years, the North American Aerospace Defense Command has tracked Santa’s flight around the world. What began as a misplaced phone call turned into a long-running tradition complete with maps, apps, and a website-based tracker.
In 1955, according to the NORAD official Santa Tracker website, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) began tracking Santa when a young child accidentally called the CONAD unlisted phone number after seeing a newspaper advertisement. The Director of Operations, Colonel Harry Shoup, answered the phone and instructed his staff to check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. This began an annual tradition. NORAD replaced CONAD in 1958, and they have been tracking Santa every year since.
NORAD states they are on the clock 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, tracking airplanes, missiles, space launches, and anything else that flies in or around the North American continent. (This presumably excludes birds, bats, bugs, and flying squirrels.)
Every Christmas Eve, Santa is on their radar.
Santa’s route usually starts at the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean and travels west. Historically, he visits the South Pacific first, then heads to New Zealand and Australia. From there, he heads north to Japan, across Asia and over to Africia, then on to Western Europe, Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Central and South America.
In addition to the website and apps for tracking Santa, there is an Operations Center that takes phone calls for Santa’s whereabouts, beginning at 4 a.m. MST on December 24 and available until midnight. A NORAD operator can be reached directly by calling 1-877-HI-NORAD (1-877-446-6723).
The phone operators are more than 1,250 Canadian and American uniformed personnel and Department of Defense civilians who volunteer their time to answer phone calls and emails from around the world, asking about Santa’s location on Christmas Eve.
For more information and to track Santa Claus, visit www.noradsanta.org
