One late August morning, a man fell about 100 feet down a ravine near the Chattahoochee River.
The trench was in a wooded area behind an apartment complex in Cumberland. The 41-year-old man couldn’t climb out because he’d injured his hip and arm, according to Cobb Fire Department officials. But he could video call 911 to help responders find him.
It was the first time Cobb dispatch and rescue crews used live video from a 911 caller. They had some difficulty accessing the feed at first, the fire department said. But with the help of the dispatcher, bystanders and ultimately the video, rescuers found the man and pulled him out on a special stretcher known as a Stokes basket.
A rescue boat, and then an ambulance, took him to the hospital.
“The integration of video from the 911 caller into the response operations, it was extremely valuable,” said Melissa Alterio, executive director of the Cobb County Department of Emergency Communications. “The fire department is just so grateful for the assistance.”
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
As land lines become symbols of nostalgia, metro Atlanta’s biggest 911 dispatch centers are spending millions to switch their networks from copper wire to digital, enabling new features such as video feeds and precise location capabilities.
Georgia is lagging behind other states in adopting the new technology, known as Next Generation 911. Alongside increased staffing, it can help improve answer rates that have been dismal in some counties.
After the recent tech upgrade, Cobb’s dispatchers can see a map with the exact location of every cellphone contacting them. In addition to video calls, there is a “silent chat” feature people can use to communicate secretly with 911 during domestic violence or active shooter incidents. The new technology uses artificial intelligence to translate and transcribe foreign languages. It also connects calls to the 911 center faster.
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation two years ago found thousands of emergency callers across the region were left on hold for significant periods of time when they called 911.
The 911 centers run by three of Georgia’s four most populous counties failed to meet the national standard of answering 95% of calls within 20 seconds. Of those counties, Cobb was the one that hit the mark.
Cobb dispatchers said their new technology also helps them respond more efficiently once they pick up the phone. Before the upgrade, they said, the only independent verification of a caller’s location came from the nearest cell tower.
“We had to ask the callers a bunch of questions and write it all out,” dispatcher Julianna Shetterly said one recent afternoon, after sending wreckers to an accident in Kennesaw where someone was trapped. “Location is absolutely everything.
“Even if the caller isn’t able to tell me what’s happening, if I have their location, I can get some kind of services to them.”
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
In Cobb, the upgrade has increased the Department of Emergency Communications’ budget by about $1 million per year.
The department plans an expansion to meet the needs of the fast-growing county, which includes Truist Park and The Battery mixed-use development.
Cobb’s 911 department has 160 positions and about 10 vacancies as of last month, Alterio said. County officials would like to hire more dispatchers and a larger technology team, but there isn’t enough space in the Marietta center.
The Cobb County Commission in August approved almost $1.6 million to buy 12 acres of vacant land north of Powder Springs for a new 911 building. It will cost about $48 million to construct, with funding from special purpose local option sales tax revenues.
The new building will have reinforced walls, secure access points, surveillance for worker safety and private sleeping quarters for workers who have to stay during a disaster. It will hold more consoles for dispatchers, a larger data center and more office space for the tech team, Alterio said.
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
“With all the new technologies that come online, those are other variables and factors that we have to constantly look at, because who we want to be in three to five years, we’re working on that right now,” Public Safety Director Mike Register said.
In Gwinnett County, commissioners in January allocated $11.8 million over five years to replace the 911 phone system and switch to the emergency services IP network, known as ESInet, that is commonly used for Next Generation 911
Two years ago, the Gwinnett County Police Department 911 center answered only 65% of calls within 20 seconds, improving to 84% last year. This year, Gwinnett finally cleared the national standard, answering 95.5% of all calls within 20 seconds, according to records the AJC received through a Georgia Open Records Act request.
“The improvement that we have been able to achieve stems directly from the intentional efforts that have been made in both recruitment and training, as well as continual assessment of operational procedures,” Gwinnett Police Department spokesman Cpl. Ryan Winderweedle said.
The 911 center handles all calls that originate in Georgia’s second most populous county. Dispatchers send fire and medical responders throughout Gwinnett, but police calls are transferred to cities where appropriate, Winderweedle said.
Of the Gwinnett 911 division’s 145 positions, 20% are vacant, he said.
DeKalb County is also making improvements.
DeKalb approved an emergency expenditure in February of $8.1 million over five years to upgrade to the Next Generation system, records show. When DeKalb’s 911 communications director, Carina Swain, took over in December 2023, almost one-third of the 130 positions were vacant. As of last month, there were only a couple of vacancies, she said.
Swain said the department stepped up recruitment but also reduced employee turnover, partly through appreciation and recognition activities. The department recently honored four operators who provided lifesaving resuscitation instructions to callers, she said.
Full staffing helped DeKalb improve its 911 answer rate from a dismal 52% last year. But at 71%, it still falls short of the national standard, according to public records obtained by the AJC.
“Most of our staff are new hires,” Swain said. “It does take awhile for them to adjust. It is a learning curve.”
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
More than 40% of 911 calls to DeKalb are not emergencies, Swain said. DeKalb’s Next Generation system will automatically transfer those calls to nonemergency lines, improving answer rates for the true emergencies, she said.
The county is also distributing brochures to educate residents on when to use the nonemergency line, such as discovering a car has been burglarized overnight.
In Atlanta, the City Council appropriated $1.5 million three years ago to upgrade the police department’s 911 center to digital phone lines the following year. Before the upgrade, the center often received calls that should have gone to DeKalb County, because both jurisdictions used lines that relied on cell towers to locate mobile callers.
“No one wants to be calling on behalf of their loved one who’s having a heart attack and be rerouted,” said Ryan Solis, deputy director of technology and infrastructure for the Atlanta Police Department’s 911 division.
Atlanta’s 911 tech team has grown from two to five managers in the past four years, Solis said.
APD improved its 911 answer rate from 71% two years ago to 90% this year. As of last month, the department had 171 positions related to 911 call processing, but 20 were vacant, Solis said, attributing all but one vacancy to a batch of 19 new positions the city approved in August.
Looking forward to next year’s FIFA World Cup, the police department is in the early stages of adding translation and nonemergency call processing features to the 911 system, Solis said.
“Next Gen 911 means something different to everybody,” he said. “Each jurisdiction has their discretion as to what to add.
“Basically, we’re building a house, and we’re deciding whether to upgrade the cabinets in the kitchen, but we couldn’t do that if we hadn’t put down a brick foundation that’s solid.”
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
