When you face an emergency of any kind, time is critical. Seconds seem like minutes, minutes like hours if you’re waiting for responders to a fire, a crime or a medical emergency.

The emergency agencies in Gainesville, Hall County and elsewhere are like Olympic sprinters, always looking to trim a few seconds off their dash times to handle whatever calamity awaits them. They know that for many victims of accidents, heart attacks, strokes and other afflictions, the difference between life and death could be just a few seconds, or what emergency officials call "The Golden Hour."

That’s why we began the effort to examine just how the responders in our city and county stack up when it comes to getting to the scene quickly and effectively, with the right trained personnel and equipment to get the job done. What we found is impressive, and should be of comfort to readers in the area.

For Gainesville police, the average response time is under 3 minutes in an emergency. For Hall County Sheriff’s deputies, it’s about 7 minutes. For fires, it’s 5« minutes in the city, 7 minutes in the county. All of those times rate favorably against national averages.

This idea for this series began with questions about our local response times based on news out of Atlanta that cast doubt on that city’s process of handling emergencies. Well-publicized reports told of ambulances and fire trucks sent to the wrong addresses or too slow to arrive and 911 calls not answered. City officials sought to fix whatever issues led to the breakdowns in a system on which we all rely.

Rest assured that no matter how much government involvement one might advocate in most aspects of our political debate, there can be no disagreement that providing police, fire and rescue services is the first responsibility of any community to its citizens.

That’s why this information is important, and why we are pleased to report that the level of professionalism and dedication among our local agencies appears to meet the highest standards. We already suspected this based on anecdotal evidence passed to us by those who have faced emergencies in our area. We deal with these agencies every day and we can attest to their dedication and professionalism.

That said, many challenges remain. In some areas, jurisdictional concerns have, on a few occasions, slowed response times. Agency personnel know their first duty is to answer the call, then decide who should be responsible once the emergency has been handled. But there are scattered cases when red tape gets in the way and critical time may be lost. When that happens, such problems need to be addressed.

Another concern that is beyond the control of emergency officials is the rapid growth of our area. Before the construction boom in Hall faded with the recession, we saw neighborhoods spring up nearly overnight in remote areas that earlier sat as farmland or forests. That forced police, fire and EMT planners to redraw their zones and grids to serve populations of new residents. And road access and construction often has lagged behind such development, creating traffic hassles for commuters but even worse nightmares for responders trying to squeeze their way through to an accident or fire.

But that is part of the growing pains a county like Hall must endure, and so far, the skilled pros who make it happen have been able to adjust.

Yet this is no time for any of us to rest on our laurels and assume that the problem is solved. Emergency response is a rapidly evolving field, with new technology and procedures keeping it on the cutting edge and shaving off those few precious minutes. Hall and Gainesville have kept pace, but must be able to maintain fleets of vehicles and the equipment, training and staffing to keep response times low .

And these needs don’t come cheap, at a time when local governments are struggling to keep their budgets out of the red. As medical gear wears out or breaks and as furloughs and personnel cuts strain staff, keeping emergency responses quick and effective becomes the new challenge.

And there remains the need for a statewide trauma care network to ensure that accident and burn victims can be evacuated safely to a nearby facility that has the equipment and know-how to meet their needs. We in North Georgia are fortunate that Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital is no more than a 20-minute ride by helicopter from most of our area. Still, not everyone is within that radius of a trauma center like Grady, particular in more remote areas of the state.

The General Assembly approved creation of a statewide trauma system in 2007, but it has yet to grow beyond the planning stage because of funding problems. The state’s need to cut its budgets across the board in light of sagging tax revenues has led to more creative ideas to pay the tab, such as extra fees and fines, but so far there has been no consensus. The initial $58.5 million set aside was only enough to maintain the trauma centers already operating, and more is needed.

Finding funding for such a network is a challenge and needs to be revisited by state legislators in next year’s session.

We hope none of you will ever need to call 911 and use these services. But if you do, it is important that your emergency, whatever it may be, become priority one for the team of fire fighters, law officers or medical technicians who are speeding to your side. Nothing matters more when that clock is ticking.