In some Missouri counties, 911 doesn’t exist. Upgrades to emergency dispatching will change that

This article was originally published by Missouri Independent.

The average caller would never know, but dialing 911 during an emergency isn’t possible in several Missouri counties.

While the call will go through, in parts of southeast Missouri, the number is instead rerouted to a traditional 10-digit landline. But that won’t be the case for long.

Thanks to federal funds, 911 dispatchers and call centers are set for some major upgrades. Geolocation and new software are poised to bring a multitude of changes to the way emergency responders and dispatchers do their jobs.

“If you couldn’t tell them where you were and couldn’t tell them what your emergency was, they had no idea where to send anybody,” said Scott Cason, the executive director of the Missouri 911 Service Board, which was launched as part of a new law in 2018.

Since then, the board has been awarding grants and facilitating similar upgrades for counties across the state to bring them up to date with modern technology.

“Before this board started, you would really have to figure out where the caller was at,” Cason said. “That doesn’t save lives.”

In Missouri, counties are responsible for handling their own emergency dispatching. With different tax bases, populations and resources, counties could fall anywhere on a wide spectrum of 911 capabilities.

“It has been a patchwork process,” Cason said. “There is a big chunk of this state that could still use a lot of help on bringing their infrastructure up to play.”

Different 911 capabilities 

The areas that needed the most upgrades were largely clustered around southeast Missouri and Mark Twain National Forest.

“There were over 10 counties where you couldn’t call 911 from your cell phone and geolocate it,” said Kaycee Nail, who runs legislative affairs for the service board. “We had counties that we called red counties because they had the lowest service level allowable. You call 911, it just goes to a landline. Someone might miss that call because they’re also dealing with someone in jail.”

Approximately $10 million in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and another $11 million from Missouri helped the board tackle the problem. The state has made improvements to 911 in over 65 counties since the ARPA funding began.

The end goal is to get all 911 dispatchers connected to a technology called Next Generation 911, or NG911.

In many parts of the state, 911 dispatch is run through copper cables from traditional telephone poles. NG911 uses newer fiber optics and wireless 5G networks for better communication.

But moving onto a new system is no easy feat. End-to-end, copper is incompatible with the new NG911 capabilities.

And to use the new services, ultra-specific GIS mapping is required. Nearly $3 million of the ARPA funds were used to complete a flyover of the entire state to improve mapping.

Much of the new system aims to speed up the dispatching process, which is why the mapping must be specific. Things like bridge clearances or detours will be automatically factored into the process when emergency services are dispatched.

Angela Rodgers, the director of the Scott County 911 Emergency Services Board, is looking forward to seeing the upgrades unfold over the next two to three years.

“Scott County can receive calls out of Illinois if the cellphone towers hit just right,” Rodgers said. “We weren’t able to transfer across to the right county or use certain lines.”

New technology 

Part of the 911 Service Board’s goal was to find ways to consolidate services. With new technology, that goal becomes much easier.

The board opted for a “regionalization” approach — grouping nearby counties together to make the upgrades more affordable and quicker to achieve.

“You can consolidate virtually,” Nail said. “If the sheriff in Scott County wants to continue dispatching his police, but is happy to give up fire and EMS, you can break up and consolidate different aspects.”

The upgrades are expected to take two to three years to complete. The service board is asking the General Assembly for $10 million for next year’s budget.

“There are places that have not got the grant that we needed more funding for, quite honestly, to bring these all up to speed and bring the entire state to Next Gen 911 compliancy,” Nail said. “That’s going to take a lot more money and a lot more time.”

Response times are expected to fall as more processes are automated, meaning dispatchers should be able to make it to an emergency more quickly. Rodgers said she isn’t sure what to expect when it comes to how the technology may make things easier for dispatchers.

“The service is going to be top-notch now. I am not even sure that we are going to be able to compare it to what we’ve done before,” Rodgers said.

This article first appeared on Beacon: Missouri and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.