As the April 25 EF3 tornado was rampaging through Beaufort County, a flood of calls came into Washington’s communications center, clogging the phone lines.

In reaction to the amount of calls that came in, Brian Alligood, Washington’s city manager asked city council during Monday’s meeting to allow him to purchase a back-up PRI (Primary Rate Interface). The new system will allow for more incoming calls.

“We had some money that was allocated to an Information Technology project that we put on hold,” Alligood said.

The current system is housed in the Municipal Building and city officials wanted a backup. The back-up unit will be used when the city becomes inundated with calls or if the Municipal Building is damaged or there is a failure in the system.

The city’s current system can only handle a certain number calls before not accepting anymore. According to Alligood, the city wanted to be proactive as the area prepares for hurricane season.

“We wanted to better prepare ourselves and use it as an alternate,” said Mac Hodges, Washington’s mayor. “We can still be connected with the new unit.”

City officials said they were not aware of the overload of calls until it came to light after the tornado.

“We’ve never been in that situation before, so when we find them we fix them,” Alligood said. “We are always looking at things and asking, ‘what happens if this occurs?’ Sometimes things pop up like the call volume.”

The city moved the $30,000 budgeted for the PC virtualization project to fund the installation and purchase of the second PRI at the communications center.

“This will keep us functioning in case something catastrophic happens,” Hodges said. “We want to keep communicating, and hopefully we don’t use it, but it is good for the city.”