But when they called 911, no one answered.
Sipe’s wife, daughter and daughter’s boyfriend dialed repeatedly — “at least” 10 times before an operator picked up, said his daughter, Amber Sims.
Their experience was frightening, and it was not entirely unique.
More than one in five emergency calls to Columbia and Richland County’s 911 Communications Center ended before an operator answered in 2025, according to the agency’s own monthly reports. That’s nearly 23 percent of last year’s 911 calls.
“All three of us were calling … just no one picked up,” Sims said. “I was just panicked, I was very scared.”
Callers whose 911 calls went unanswered waited an average of 24 seconds before disconnecting, a separate report shows — far exceeding the communication center’s long-standing goal of answering every 911 call within one ring. National benchmarks call for most emergency calls to be answered within 15 to 20 seconds.
Calls that are not picked up before the caller disconnects are termed abandoned. The time it takes an operator to answer a call is the most common reason calls go abandoned, say a city official and a national expert.
The data also show that in 2025:
- High call volumes do not alone explain the problem. Even in months with comparatively lower call volumes, the abandonment rate remained high, above 20%. In February, for example, when the center received about 27,000 calls — one of the lowest monthly totals of the year — about 22% of calls were still abandoned.
- Nearly 60% of all calls to the center in 2025 were non-emergency, meaning the same operators responsible for answering emergency calls are also fielding lower-priority concerns such as theft reports and nuisance complaints.
City of Columbia officials who oversee emergency communications for the city and county acknowledged “challenges” with the call center but stressed that they feel center operations have been successful overall.
Officials pointed to high call volumes and a 21.5% vacancy rate at the call center as factors contributing to the more than 84,400 abandoned calls.
“It’s not acceptable for any type of percentage to be up like that,” said Columbia Assistant City Manager Henry Simons adding that it’s the city’s goal to manage the call volume “with the resources that we have.”
Officials stressed that there are a variety of reasons a call could go abandoned, including pocket dials, repeat call-ins and multiple people calling about the same event. But officials acknowledged that call answer times are the main reason for abandoned calls.
Emergency calls to 911 should be answered within 15 seconds 90% of the time, and within 20 seconds 95% of the time, according to national standards set by the National Emergency Number Association, an agency which informs 911 operations across the country.
The Columbia-Richland Communications Center is jointly managed by the city of Columbia and Richland County, with the city overseeing staffing but with both governments paying for the department.
Richland County Council Chair Jesica Mackey, when presented with the newspaper’s findings, declined an interview.
“I don’t have anything to add on this story at this time,” Mackey said.
Meanwhile, Columbia Mayor Daniel Rickenmann said addressing the situation would be a priority for the city, but added that he wanted to better understand the data to identify the various factors contributing to the problem.
“If there’s a breakdown somewhere, then we’ll address it and tackle it,” he said.
The city is currently writing its budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year, which Rickenmann said is the perfect opportunity to determine if more funding can help. Rickenmann also emphasized that most abandoned calls are returned.
“Is it perfect that they didn’t get somebody on the first [call]? Absolutely not. Is that what we want? Absolutely not,” Rickenmann said. “But at the same time, you’ve got to acknowledge that those people did get service, the majority of them.”
Records show about 76% of abandoned 911 calls were ultimately classified as “serviced” — either because the call center placed a callback or because the caller reached 911 in a repeat call within an hour, as the Sipe family did. But the records do not indicate how quickly those callbacks or repeat connections occurred within that hour.
911 staff shortages eroding public trust
Neka Dickerson called 911 several times in March, after a belligerent man walked into her Farrow Road hair salon and refused to leave.“That phone rung, rung, rung, rung, rung,” she recalled. “We don’t know if that guy had a gun on him. We don’t know what the situation was. And it was dark (outside.)… To me, it’s like we were helpless.”
Between her and her colleague, they called 911 three or four times before someone answered the phone, Dickerson said. Now, she said she can’t rely on 911 or the police if she is in trouble again.
Residents across the city and county who called 911 during terrifying moments and struggled to get through told The State newspaper that they now have less faith in a system the public expects to work every time.
The Columbia-Richland 911 call center’s own long-standing policy states emergency calls should be picked up on the first ring. That policy has been in place since at least 2015. On May 11, the department updated that policy to include the NENA standard.
“A second is like a lifetime if you have an emergency, so I understand,” said Wendy Royal, Columbia’s director of emergency communications.
Long wait times are one of the most common reasons for abandoned calls nationwide, said April Heinze, an expert with the National Emergency Number Association.
“So if the call isn’t answered within a certain period of time people will hang up and then call back,” said Heinze.
City officials said operators are always taking calls, but that the call volume requires more staff.
The call center had 22 open positions out of 102, as of early May. That’s a vacancy rate of 21.5%.
Filling those positions can be difficult since the pay is modest and the job can be stressful. It’s not always easy “to hear some of the things that they hear,” Simons said.
In a recent job posting on the city’s employment portal, Columbia told prospective 911 telecommunicators that the salary range was between $39,024 and $48,780.
Staff vacancies are a problem for emergency communications centers nationwide. Nearly 75% of respondents to a nationwide survey of 911 operators conducted by NENA reported that their organization had open positions in 2025, a slight dip from the 82% of respondents who reported those vacancies in 2024.
Employee mental health is also a growing challenge. Burnout surpassed hiring as the top workforce issue facing 911 operators in that 2025 survey, with nearly 70% of respondents feeling daily pre-shift stress.
“Our people work their a** off down there,” Rickenmann said. “I mean, they absolutely do a tremendous job. And the total volume that goes through there is tremendous.”
The Columbia-Richland Communications Center is currently training three prospective employees, with another 10 set to begin a training course later this spring. Royal said more people will lead to better answer times, which she said will mean fewer abandoned calls.
Columbia and Richland County are also in talks to relocate the 911 call center to a new facility, though when asked about the plans, city officials declined to comment, “due to ongoing contractual discussions” between the city and county over “the potential relocation” of the call center. Currently, the call center is located inside the Columbia-Richland Fire Department headquarters on Laurel Street.
Non-emergencies tying up lines?
Hope Jefferson was on her way home in early January when she checked her security camera and saw an intruder at her house.Jefferson said she called 911 six times before reaching an operator. When she did connect, she told the person on the other line how many times she had tried calling but didn’t get the response she expected.
“They were just like, they have a high call volume,” Jefferson said. “As if that was a valid response. Not at all. Because if the intruder … had a weapon, I would have been dead long before 911 answered the phone.”
Data reviewed by the newspaper show that 911 call-takers are juggling non-emergency calls in addition to emergency ones. Nearly 60% of last year’s 887,000-plus calls to the department were classified as non-emergencies. Those calls come in through the department’s designated non-emergency number but are still handled by the same operators.
Royal said the department prioritizes 911 calls over non-emergency calls, but that can lead non-emergent callers to hang up and dial 911, further stressing the system.
“It’s tough at times because of the (call) volume, and they (911 operators) take lots of calls, not only just emergency calls, but non-emergent calls,” Simons said.
The department is looking at using AI to help answer some of those non-emergency calls, Royal said.
The Columbia-Richland department has also experienced glitches. In one recent case, a malfunctioning hotel phone system repeatedly called 911 but would not allow operators to pick up. Those calls registered as abandoned.
Rickenmann, Columbia’s mayor, said the city can do better.
“At the end of the day, to me it doesn’t matter if it’s 20% or 1%, we want to try to be at 100%,” Rickenmann said. “Now that this is all in front of me, I’ve got to address it.”
City officials pointed to the overall call volume as a sign of the department’s success. Simons said the department is “getting it right” with the majority of those calls and saving lives everyday.
Meanwhile, local residents say their confidence in the system has been rattled, maybe forever.
Dickerson, who called the police after a belligerent man refused to leave her hair salon, said now when she leaves work at night, she goes in a group.
“Because we know we can’t call 911,” she said. “When someone dials those three numbers, it’s a dire emergency, I am in danger. Could you imagine dialing that number and not getting an answer?”
This story was reported in collaboration with SC Investigates, a nonprofit newsroom that partners with local journalists to produce accountability reporting in South Carolina .
©2026 The State. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
