5 days ago
Director of Public Safety Communications gives tips on dealing with emergency situations, calling 911
The director of Calcasieu Parish Public Safety Communications District 24, Richard McGuire, gave an update on the emergency 911 services at Thursday's Calcasieu Parish Police Jury meeting.
'Our primary responsibility is to answer 911 calls originating in Calcasieu Parish and we dispatch for 14 fire departments,' McGuire said.
McGuire stated they answer 10,000-12,000 calls a month — 85 percent are 911 calls and 15 percent are administrative calls. The majority of administrative calls come from emergency alarm companies reporting either burglary alarms or fire alarms. Ninety percent of the 85 percent of 911 calls come from cell phones. Around 9 percent come from landline phones, but most of the calls come from VoIP phones like Suddenlink or Cameron Communications and a little less than one percent come from text messages.
'Cell phones have become the predominant way in which our community communicates back to us,' he said.
According to McGuire they answer approximately 95 percent of their calls within 10 seconds or less and answer 99 percent of their calls within 20 seconds or less. The average 911 call lasts about 90 seconds.
'I cannot speak highly enough about our telecommunicators that come to work everyday knowing they're going to deal with people in crisis and potentially having the worst days of their lives when they call us – they do this with great empathy and compassion, all while racing against the clock to get help to them as soon as possible,' he said.
McGuire also explained a website, and an app called Smart911. On these you can create a safety profile for yourself, on this website you can put in medical information, emergency contacts, address, photos of your home, how to get in your home if an emergency team needs in, if a code is needed at the door, where to turn your utilities off at, animals and where they might hide.
'It's pretty much what you would want the paramedics or firemen to know about you if you cannot speak – if you are having an emergency and call but cannot speak what you would want them to know,' he said.
Smart911 began in 2012 and to this day it has not been hacked, your information is kept private and funded by participating 911 centers, not through any form of marketing. Your safety profile will never expire unless you go in with your username and password and delete your file. You will need to update your profile from time-to-time and also update it with medical history personal information are your address or phone number if it has been changed.
In the summer of 2016 Calcasieu Parish started allowing a person to use text messaging for 911 services if you are in a situation in which you cannot speak or it is in danger for you to speak. While calling is preferred, sometimes calling is not an option. When someone calls 911 from a cellular phone they receive a longitude and latitude of where the phone is being used to get responders to you quickly, but with text messaging they will not see a pinpoint location of where you are at, at best it will give a location of the towersite you are using, according to McGuire.
'Let's say for some reason you are hard of hearing and you have an issue in which you cannot communicate verbally – then texting 911 is a great way for you to contact 911 services,' he said.
When sending a message to 911 you simply put 911 in the spot where you type who you are texting, no area code, and in the body of the message it is most helpful if you put who you are, your address, phone number you are texting from and what the emergency is in order to send out the right emergency service to you. A blank message to 911 will go through as well, they will then respond with a question on if you are having an emergency, once you respond, the next question will be if it is safe for you to call 911. If the answer is no then the rest can be done by text message. If texting 911 is not available in your area, or is temporarily unavailable you will receive a message indicating that texting 911 is not available and to contact 911 by phone call. Photos and videos cannot be sent to 911 at this time. Always remember to never text and drive and be prepared to answer questions if you text 911.
With Calcasieu Parish heading into a new school year McGuire would like to remind parents to be sure your kids know their home address, both parents first and last names and at least one parent's phone number in case of an emergency.
'I think the most important thing you can know before dialing 911 or while you're dialing is find out where you're at because that's the first thing we're going to ask you is where is your location – that way we can send out help to you,' he said.
'Come rain or shine, blizzard or hurricane they are there for us,' he said regarding the 911 telecommunicators.
The Calcasieu Parish Police Jury will meet again on Aug. 21 at 5:30 p.m.
