By Carina Woudenberg
The Half Moon Bay Review
HALF MOON BAY, Calif. — Cell phone users on the coast should feel a little more secure in the knowledge that new equipment will soon enable the county’s emergency center to receive 911 calls via wireless phones.
Previously, these calls were sent to the California Highway Patrol’s regional dispatch center in Vallejo, where a dispatcher would have to determine the location of the caller and find the nearest public safety answering point for the caller.
“I think it will be better for citizens in general,” said Half Moon Bay Police Capt. Michael O’Malley of the system that was installed on May 27. “It will benefit us because the operators will be more familiar with the locations of the calls.”
Delays were another problem with the old system. Jim Asche, emergency planner with the county’s Office of Emergency Services, can attest to that.
“I’ve been on hold for close to 10 minutes before someone picked up once,” Asche said of a 911 call he made. “(It) was really frustrating because I was sitting behind a car accident.”
Jamie Young, director of the 911 center in Redwood City, says this “state-of-the-art” computerized telephone system has a mapping program that will translate longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates from cell phones that have global positioning system chips in them.
“It’s quite complex,” Young said. “It can, depending on your cell phone provider, give the caller the ability to directly reach the 911 center.”
If a call is received within one-third of a mile of a state highway it will still go to the CHP, Young added. Half Moon Bay Police Chief, Don O’Keefe, said only 40 percent of the calls will make it to the Redwood City center — an estimate based on the large number of calls that will be made on or near the highway. Keefe would like to see all of the calls reach the Redwood City destination.
“We just want to respond as quickly as possible to an emergency call,” he said. “And switching it to one (main dispatching center) instead of two can save critical seconds.”
Six vendors, including Spring Nextel, AT&T and Metro PCS, have agreed to sign on to the new system over the course of the summer.
Copyright 2008 The Half Moon Bay Review