Buchanan County residents will be able to text 911 for the first time since the three-digit phone number was introduced in the 1960s.
“Bringing Text 911 to our community is a lifesaving move in situations where you would have an active shooter or home invasion ... This will provide people a means to get help without putting themselves in harm,” said Dawn Hill, St. Joseph communications center supervisor.
Nearly 75 percent of emergency calls received by the communications center is from a cellphone, according to Hill.
Texting 911 will work the same as normal texting, but unlike voice calls, texting 911 doesn’t provide operators with a GPS location.
“The communications operator will try to get the resident to call because we are able to get so much more information. ... We can listen to background noises, and call taking and entry is much quicker,” Hill said.
If a person can’t call, then operators will text back and forth with callers to get necessary information, Hill added.
“We see such a lifesaving need in our community especially with our speech and hearing impaired members that we took the initiative to get the software to bring this service,” Hill said.
Text 911 will provide benefits to speech and hearing impaired, who must use special devices invented over 50 years ago to communicate with 911 via non-voice messages, such as teletypewriter (TTY) text telephone device or a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD). The devices allow two users to type messages to each other, but are slow-moving.
In January, Hill began the research process by traveling to Hannibal and Macon, Mo., to get feedback about their experience with Text 911.
“We got really good information from them and it seems to be successful and they aren’t having many obstacles. ... There’s been lifesaving incidents in their community,” Hill said.
After the visit, they decided to initiate the process and began contacting wireless carriers to enable the service, next they notified the Federal Communications Commission to get certified with them and completed paperwork, currently they are working with service providers to get the software installed, the next phase will be testing and training for operators and educating the community on using the service.
The FCC recently approved Text 911 rules at the request of the public safety answering points (PSAPs), which required wireless carriers and other providers of interconnected text messaging to deliver emergency texts to 911 call centers upon request. Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T were among the four mobile providers that voluntarily enabled texting to 911.
The initial cost of the modernized service will be time invested to get the internet based service established. As technology evolves for next generation 911, additional equipment may be required, according to Hill. The current system has safeguards.
“In the event we have Internet failures the person will get a bounce-back message that says the 911 message didn’t go through and they need to call,” Hill said.
The service is schedule to be unveiled to the public late spring or early summer.
“We are progressing pretty quickly with the wireless carriers. ... Once we are able to do our testing, we are planning to get it started,” Hill said.
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