I have a Nest Protect smoke and CO alarm. The other night one of them went off when *someone* forgot to check if the flue was open before starting a fire.

One of the features the Nest features has is to send an alert to your phone and it got me thinking: What if I was traveling and got such an alert? Should I call 911 or add my fire station's local number into my contacts?

I called my local station today and they told me to call 911, regardless of where I was. They told me that, once I dialed 911, my name, home address, etc. are displayed to the local 911 center and they could notify emergency services in my home location faster than I could calling my local fire station directly.

That sounds great in theory, but are 911 systems across the country really so interconnected?

quote:

Originally posted by CoolRich59:
That sounds great in theory, but are 911 systems across the country really so interconnected?

They are not.
Much depends on how tied-together the local community's network is to the county, along with how modern they are (most are analog) and the level of complexity they can handle, not to mention if long-simmering disputes haven't been resolved between various jurisdictions.

I have a distant cousin who's wife died during hurricane Harvey in Houston. Long story short, emergency services in the county they were in, was unable to reach them nor, capable of coordinating any efforts with any other outside services. It was a wake-up call for the entirety of Houston's metro's emergency services network and daunting task to integrate and modernize.

I had a similar problem recently. I was out of town and our alarm triggered. I'll spare you the whole story, but what I did was call the local police non emergency number and gave them the details. It took 40 mins for an officer to get there for what at the time we thought was a BE in progress. When my wife asked the responding officer why it took so long he advised it was dispatched as non emergency because I called the non emergency number. He said in the future if that were ever the case I should still call the non emergency number, tell them it is an emergency and ask to be transferred to emergency dispatch. So you should have your local non emergency number in your phone, call it and ask to be connected to emergency.

quote:

I called my local station today and they told me to call 911, regardless of where I was.

This.
Don't bother to call the local station, they need to notify dispatch if they're going anywhere and what help to send depending on type of call and *if* they're even in the station.

Fire crews don't just sit in the station waiting for a call. We would go to the park to do PT in the morning, have to hit the store to get the days groceries and might head out to see new construction in the area in the evening after traffic dies down.
(In the old days we did fire code inspections too. That could take almost all day if you worked for a hug-nut captain who was hoping to promote to battalion chief.)

Thanks guys. I worked for Motorola's public safety division back in the 1990s and can remember talking to some cities and counties that still had antiquated 911 systems dating back to the 1960s.

Hence, my skepticism that in the last 20 years agencies across the country had both acquired state-of-the-art systems and established nation-wide interconnectivity.

I know 911 services for my area are consolidated at the County level. I'm going to put the non-emergency number for the County's emergency dispatch center into my phone and will call them if I'm traveling and get an alert from the Nest.

I live in a rural community along the Ohio River in Kentucky. If I'm at home or around home i.e. the river/park and I use my cell phone to call 911, I get Indiana State Police. It happens so often they ask if you are calling from Kentucky or Indiana!

You tell them Kentucky and they switch you over or if it's a low priority emergency they just take the information and then call the county or State Police, fire or EMS.

I have had to call a few times because of incidents on the river with boats. A domestic dispute in the park and each time it was Indiana that answered the 911 call.


ARman

Not very. Even worse on a cell network.

I made the attempt to report what was a getting-out-of-control roadside fire once in AL. After 5 transfers and folks being snippy with me, I finally told the last person that the entire county could burn for all I cared, I was already gone!

Wasn't their fault, but certainly no help or coordination.

It depends. Every county is different. I’d call the fire station and ask them for a number other than 911 that gets into their dispatch as well as the Sheriff’s non-emergency number and ask them the same question. One or the other may be able to give you a number you can call from anywhere and get the appropriate dispatch center. It is worth having whatever non-emergency numbers too, but if you can get a direct dial number for the dispatch center you need, that’s the one to call in an emergency when you are away.

The advantage of getting that number from those folks is they know how integrated their systems are (or are not) and they should be able to point you in the right direction.

Calls can easily transcend states. On 9/11were were within three miles of the towers. the volume of calls caused an overload on the system and my distich which was our own PSAP was receiving calls from people trapped in the towers.

I've been out 15 years so the system I knew is probably long gone.

The issue I see today is broadband phone system which clearly state that caller info may not be transmitted to the 911 system. Only way to know for sure is check.

Some erroneous info in these posts...

-Calls don’t easily go to other PSAPS. In the case of a major event or system failure, they may reroute based on how it is set up either automatically or with some sort of manual switch over (such as calls on 9/11)

-“Emergency” and “non emergency” calls are answered at the same location by the same people. In an ACD (Automatic Call Distribution) system 911 calls will be presented to a call receiver first, but most places still have primary call receivers screen all incoming calls, even on 10 digit lines, to determine how to handle.

-No guarantee on who will answer a cell call. It is dependent on which antenna, on cell tower you call hits and where the cell system “guesses” you are. That is all on the cell providers, 911 has nothing to do with it or power over it.

-Majority of burglar alarms are sent as non-priority. Why? Because about 95%+ of them are false alarms. That is the reality of alarms, no doubt it is a priority to you but agencies are getting more and more liability weary.

No pursuit policies etc when there IS a REAL crime, certainly not going to risk going code and putting other known problems on hold to rush to something that is 95% not a problem.

We have municipalities in our area that don’t even dispatch police until AFTER someone has “verified” it is not a false alarm (private security, neighbor, homeowner, etc) and will fine the alarm company should they attempt to even report an “Unverified” alarm.

Not too mention in a real burglary, bad guy is in and out with your stuff in less than 10 min. Here is the sequence of an Alarm... It goes off 1-2 min after the sensor is tripped. Alarm center calls the location to check/confirm. If no answer, they leave a message. That takes about a minute minimum. Alarm company then goes down list of 1-3 contacts to try and confirm alarm and ask if dispatch is desired. Another 3-5 min for that process. Alarm company finally calls dispatch center to report, that takes about 1-2 minutes for information and computer entry. Dispatcher gets the info and if johnny law is available, gives it to him. Officer friendly has to drive to location, 3-15 minutes depending on area.

So by the time cops arrive, approx 16 min or more after the alarm was tripped, crook be gone. As I have said for years, cops will ALWAYS arrive just in time to take the report.

-Fire alarms probably done different, but that is not my area of experience.



Soooo, to answer your question -

If you are traveling and call 911, you are going to be connected to the PSAP for the area you are in.

They are NOT going to get your name or home address. If you are on a cell they will get your cell number and an approximate location of where you are currently at. That location could be as accurate as 10 meters or 10 miles depending on where you are and who your cell provider is.

If you are using a landline, 911 will get the name of the business or person whose phone you are using and the physical location as entered by a minimum wage data entry person working for the phone company who entered the info into the database.

If you are any appreciable distance away, they will likely not be able to transfer you to your home PSAP. If you are a city or county away, they probably can.



Here is my “expert” advice...

From your home, call 911 tell them it is not an emergency, but you would like to know the 10 digit number to report a fire or burglar alarm (may be different Dispatch Centers depending on how your system is set up) Put that/those number(s) in your phone and use it to call directly if you are ever out of the area and get a notification.

Finally, knowing your complete and correct address will go along way. Sounds silly, but you’d be surprised how many people have no clue. Add stress to the equation and minutes can be wasted determining the correct location and calls can mistransffered as a result.

12345 SW 6th ST
12345 6th ST SW
12345 6th Ave
12345 N 6th Ave

May all be legit addresses and may be many miles apart. Directionals (N, NW, E, SE, etc...) whether they come before or after the street name, and correct street type (St, Ave, Pl, Blvd, Circle, Terrace, etc..) make a difference and I would say fully 10% of our callers don’t provide the correct address in the correct syntax.

Thanks 911Boss!

The same day I posted this, I also dug around on our County's website and got the contact info for the fellow who is coming up with the plan for consolidating 911 systems in the County. I reached out to him and he was kind enough to help.

This is what I was told:

Thank you for the email and great question. Each 9-1-1 dispatch center should have a “non-emergency“ phone number. I am reaching out to the centers that cover North Barrington for specific information.

Currently, there are twelve independent 9-1-1 dispatch centers in Lake County that cover different geographic areas of the county. This is the situation that I have been asked to analysis with the goal of building a plan that simplifies and consolidates where it makes sense. I am working with most of the centers in Lake County on this project, so I am happy to contact the correct center (or centers) that cover your home.

I will forward the information when I receive it.

Not long afterwards, I got another email from someone at the 911 center nearest to my house:

I received your email from Mr. xxxxxx in regards to your concern on jurisdiction. Your address at xxx xxxxxxxx, North Barrington falls in the Lake Zurich Fire Protection district and Lake County Sheriff police jurisdiction. The best 10 digit numbers to call if you are out of area and unable to call 911 are: Fire/EMS xxx-xxx-xxxx and Lake County Sheriff’s 911 Center xxx-xxx-xxxx. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any additional questions or concerns.