Atlanta's 911 System Still Has Problems That Need Fixing

About 10 years ago, I called 911 to report a traffic light outage at the intersection of Flat Shoals and Glenwood avenues, a very busy thoroughfare in East Atlanta Village. I called out of concern the situation with the light — outages occurred frequently at the time — could lead to accidents or pedestrians being mowed down.

Now, this part of Atlanta is tricky for the 911 emergency system. East Atlanta and several other neighborhoods on the east side of Moreland Avenue are in DeKalb County, even though they fall within Atlanta city limits.

When I called, a DeKalb 911 operator answered. Realizing the intersection in question was in the city limits, she transferred me to Atlanta 911, only to be ping-ponged back to DeKalb County 911 and then back to Atlanta.

The experience was frustrating. Nearly a decade later, it remains so.

Several residents from Kirkwood, Ormewood Park, Benteen Park and East Atlanta met with Atlanta 911 Director Brenda Ross and Deputy Atlanta Police Chief Shawn L. Jones Wednesday night for a town hall forum on the system.

Margie Yondorf, who is on the Public Safety committee of the Kirkwood Neighbors' Organization, put the town hall meeting together because of some of the troubles our 911 system has had in the past.

Given the firestorm of complaints and scrutiny our 911 system received just a few years ago, which led to several structural and management changes, it was disappointing to see the turn-out was so low with 30 or so people in attendance.

Unfortunately, some key issues still need to be addressed, judging from some of the grievances residents discussed last night.

The confusion with which jurisdiction answers the 911 call comes from mobile phones, Jones said. Those phones go to the nearest cell tower, unlike the landlines, which are automatically routed to the proper agency.

That explains why when I or some of my East Atlanta neighbors have had to call 911, we get DeKalb operators from our mobile phones, but Atlanta dispatchers from our landlines.

Jones, noted operators are trained to transfer those calls to the proper jurisdiction and that that process takes mere seconds.

But some residents noted that hasn't been their experience. One speaker relayed his recent call to 911  to report a street brawl at the Edgewood Retail District. The dispatcher, he said, didn't know where it was. By the time he got to the proper 911 dispatchers for the Edgewood neighborhood, the group of fighting teens dispersed — but not before going after him for even calling 911.

Other speakers noted getting disconnected or long wait times.

Ross and Jones pointed out 90 percent of the calls get answered in 10 seconds or less on average. But some folks, rightly, I think, countered that 10 percent of callers waiting more than 10 seconds is unacceptable.

Still others expressed frustration at being given conflicting information regarding whether they should call 911 or the administrative, seven-digit number, which would get residents within the city limits to the right dispatchers.

As it turns out, calling the administrative line is a problem if you get disconnected because they can't call you back, unlike when you call 911 directly.

Jones and Ross explained they are studying different technologies and upgrades to our system and implementing some new initiatives, such as building a network of "eyes" with the street cameras that are in different parts of the city.

Those moves are designed to get more detailed information to officers responding to calls.

They also are looking at different jurisdictions for best practices, such as Sandy Springs.

While I'm sure Sandy Springs has some practices we could learn from, Atlanta's 911 system gets some 100,000 calls each month. To me a city of this size should be looking at similarly-sized jurisdictions and large metro areas such as Chicago or Dallas.

Most people who attended last night's meeting were appreciative to have had the opportunity to raise the issues that concerned them, but many left feeling a little frustrated.

"I'm very disappointed in the leadership that I saw tonight from Atlanta 911," Benteen Park resident Adam Brackman told me after the meeting.

"I expected them to do a better job of presenting the capabilities of what the 911 center can do today and and what the vision for the 911 center is going to be for the future and I did not hear that."

Atlanta 911 has made some needed changes in the last few years. But, as last night's meeting suggests, there's more work that needs to be done.