As technology is ever-changing, the equipment at the Warren County 911 Center follows suit in order to be the lifeline callers need during an emergency situation, informs Coordinator Ken Helms:
“The 911 Center is fully next generation. We can receive emergency calls from pretty much any avenue that people can give us, whether it is voice over IP, which is like digital phones, or the 911 phones that can only dial 911, or even texting. That is a new service that we are now providing, which is that somebody can text 911 if they are in an event where they can’t speak. We do tell people that a phone call is always better than a text. If you can talk on the phone, definitely give us a call because we can get a bunch of different information there that we may not be able to glean effectively with a text message and we don’t know what is happening on the other end of the phone. We can always hear background noise, different things like that, through a phone call, we can’t hear that through a text. So, while we do have the capability, always try and call if you can.”
Helms states the Warren County 911 Center also receives automatic vehicle notifications from On-Star if an airbag deploys or a vehicle is involved in a crash, which then can use location data to send emergency services.
