Atlanta 911 Callers Put On Hold While House Burns Down

[x635 4,066]

Atlanta 911 Callers Put On Hold While House Burns Down

Computer Probe Sought After Alleged Slow Response

Sunday, January 25, 2009 – updated: 2:17 pm EST January 25, 2009

ATLANTA -- As Wilford Reed tried to keep his house from going up in flames, his Grant park neighbors kept their eyes on the clock, alleging it took Atlanta firefighters roughly 30 minutes to arrive at the scene.

FULL STORY: http://www.wsbtv.com/news/18559784/detail.html

[Guest FFNick]

From the wsbtv blog:

1. The city of Atlanta 911 center receives about 2600 calls on an average day.

2. Of those 2600 calls, about 80% of them are non emergency.

3. The city has a non emergency phone number. It is rarely used.

4. The center is built to acomodate 18 call takers and 4 supervisor positions that can handle calls as well as two or three back up positions that can be activated.

5. Due to recent budget cuts by the city council, on any given 8 hour shift there are on average 6 call takers on the floor. Some times more, some times less.

6. The system is built to hold overflow calls in a que to wait for the next calltaker. The system distributes the calls automatically to the next available calltaker.

7. If you are put in que and you hang up, the call remains in que and the calltaker, once they determine it is an abandoned call, has to call the number back to try to reach the caller.

8. In Atlanta it takes nearly a year to fully train a 911 call taker in so they can take calls on their own. Most quit within the first 6 months of training and the majority that are left quit within 6 months of being on their own.

9. 911 call takers make very little money with regards to what they do and what they must deal with on a daily basis.

Some very valid points and very serious issues that are much more than a unique problem to Atlanta alone.

[JBE 328]

Definitely a problem in Hotlanta. I doubt it took them a half hour to get in there. CAD Failure, wrong address, or not. Time always seems to drag when it's hitting the fan.