911 texts coming soon to area
Central Ohioans who need help but can’t speak on the phone with a 911 dispatcher will have a new way to alert police officers and firefighters in 2018.
Local governments in Franklin and Delaware counties are preparing to roll out technology in the first quarter of 2018 that will allow callers to send a text to 911.
So when a phone call isn’t practical or possible, such as when someone is hiding quietly in a closet during a break-in or witnesses a crime but can’t call 911, they can use a cellphone to send a text message.
“You can send information to police without holding a phone to your ear, very covertly,” said Ramona Patts, administrator in the Columbus Division of Support Services. “You can actually send it and nobody would know you’re sending it.”
Emergency officials say phone calls still are the preferred method to contact 911 because call takers can listen
for distress in the caller’s voice or the background and get more immediate answers to questions. Calls also provide more precise location information.
People who are hearingimpaired have been asking for the technology as well, Patts said.
“Call if you can; text if you can’t,” said Jay Somerville, director of the technical services bureau for the Dublin emergency dispatch center.
Central Ohio government agencies have been working to establish text to 911 for years. Columbus, Dublin and the Metropolitan Emergency Consortium Communications, or MECC, in Gahanna will operate as the three primary dispatch hubs for the region.
Other local governments will tap into those hubs. For example, seven other agencies will use the Columbus hub, including Franklin County and Ohio State University.
Three of the seven other agencies that will connect to Columbus already have tapped into the new system. The remaining four will be done by April. Patts said the new circuits, including backups, needed for those agencies to tap in took longer than expected and pushed the project past its scheduled rollout in January 2018.
Dublin and MECC are testing their systems to make sure that they’re ready for the rollout. They need to be interoperable so that if a 911 call center receives a text message for an emergency in a neighboring district, they can easily transfer the information.
Once they are ready to go, all three need to alert wireless carriers, which have six months to start transmitting texts to the 911 centers. Local officials are optimistic the carriers will be ready sooner.
The 911 call takers will see texts come through on a computer screen in a window that resembles a smartphone text-message chain. They will have multiple pre-programmed responses so that they can quickly assess the emergency, but they also can type custom messages back to the caller.
In the future, Patts said the centers should be able to receive photos and video as well, though it won’t be part of the initial rollout. Agencies around the country are trying to determine how they handle translating other languages too, she said.
“We think having the ability to request help without a verbal call is a level of service that will improve and expedite notifications about problems or potential problems when telephone calls aren’t possible,” said Fred Kauser, Mifflin Township fire chief and MECC administrator. “This is a really big deal.”