9-1-1 Caller intelligence checks

[Guest guest]

I was gifted with a snippet of a post from another list about STUPID 9-1-1

calls related to the terrorist attacks, so I thought I'd share it and a few

that I/we received at my little Comm Center.

In alt.emergency.services.dispatcher, b8167@... (B8167) wrote:

>I work in a 9-1-1 PSAP at least a thousand miles from the tragedy in NYC.

After

>over a decade in the business, I am still amazed by the utter stupidity of

the

>general public. However, this one incident tops them all.

>

>An adult female calls 9-1-1 and reports that at a neigbor's house there is a

>small black box laying up against a tree in the their front yard. She goes on

>to add that she heard that the black boxes on the planes that crashed into

the

>have not yet been located. (No shit, Sherlock. They're buried under tons of

>debris.) She wonders if the black box in her neighbor's yard could be one of

>the black boxes from the aircraft that struck the World Trade Center.

<snip>

Over on the left coast, about THREE thousand miles from the WTC, we got

these wireless 9-1-1 calls:

Tuesday afternoon, one caller indignantly reported that he had passed

several groups of field workers with those flags they fly to show their

national origin around their work crews. All the US flags were at

half-mast, BUT THOSE [HISPANIC] field workers had their Mexican flags ALL

the way up the staffs! He felt that was suspicious and certainly evidence

of complicity in terrorist activity. Even when I suggested that maybe

they'd gone out into the fields at daybreak and not yet heard the news or

that, perhaps, their crew bosses hadn't told them they " should " lower their

flags... ummm... of the nation that ...well... hadn't been attacked... he

cited the fact that there were US flags with some workers that WERE

lowered. So it had to be suspicious. AND WE SHOULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

I thanked him for his report. (I suspected he kept his cell phone close

at hand and turned on all the time, to be able to report everything he

could with the least possible delay.)

Innumerable calls - on 9-1-1 as well as on the business lines - asking if

we'd closed the highways " yet. " One caller wanted to know if the Golden

Gate Bridge was going to be closed, since it was such an obvious target.

(I was tempted to transfer that one to GGCC but successfully fought the

urge.) My response to most of these calls was " We haven't been notified of

any such closures. "

Another caller on the non-emergency line asked about travel to L.A. along

I-5 (without reference to airports - I was prepared to tell anybody that

asked that yes, all the airports WERE closed) and when I offered the 800

" highway information " phone number, he told me the last time he called that

number, he got part way to L.A. and discovered the Grapevine was actually

closed and he was stuck in traffic for hours, so he didn't trust that

number. I offered the explanation that " a lot happens in 4 or 5 hours, sir

[the amount of travel time between here and there on a GOOD day] - when did

you last call it before you hit the closure? " Uhhh..... before he left the

Monterey area.... Ummm hmmm. Keep the number handy, sir; do you have a

cell phone to check it throughout your trip? (Wow - he was a member of

the motoring public that does NOT carry a cell phone!)

A rumor got started (amongst the many wild ones about local and distant

highway closures) that the poor benighted soul who'd set himself on fire

along Hwy 68 early Tuesday morning was Palestinian. The timing of THAT

incident was " suspicious, " too - within an hour of the WTC tower strikes.

I pooh-poohed them (off line) as rampant hysteria until a state official

called (on the business line, thank goodness) to ask the same thing. Noop,

not Palestinian. (We had the guy's ID and although he was badly burned, he

pretty much matched his DL description, which was decidedly " appropriate "

for the West Coast agricultural area. And no, he hadn't provided any

political rationale for pouring gasoline on himself and setting it alight.)

One caller asked me if " 9-1-1 " would call everyone to warn them of

terrorist attacks. I was dumbfounded at that concept. If our brethren and

sistren of the headset hadn't done that for the folks at the WTC, why would

anyone expect that handy service out here on the West Coast????? Of course

I didn't say that, but I did ask, " How do you think we would learn that

ahead of time, when there wasn't any warning in New York? " I'm NOT making

this up, but the lady said, " Well, it's 3 hours later here. " I had to

think a moment before I could say, " We really don't have everybody's phone

number on file. " She rebutted, " I've been called by 9-1-1 - even on my

cell phone! " (Oh jeez, I knew that 9-1-1-callback thing would bite us in a

tender place some day! Color ME " guilty " of that deed!) " That's just when

you call us first and we don't know what's going on, and the phone hangs

up... we have to check on those calls. We don't keep a file on the

individual numbers. " Oh. (Uhhhh.. actually, we DO, sorta kinda: we log

the inadvertent calls, including any Caller ID display, in a running CAD

log each day, but she didn't need to know THAT!!!)

Wednesday evening, a gentleman dialed 9-1-1 and began to share some

suggestions about why people carry knives on planes, and how [we] should

combat it. The dispatcher simply told him he shouldn't call 9-1-1 for

SUGGESTIONS and when he asked her WHO he should contact, she said, " Maybe

some airport officials - or your local congressman, but not 9-1-1. "

(Another ruminating soul who had to pick up that cell phone and share!)

Anybody else got doozies to share? I'm trying to combat the horror with

humor....

Happy to be here, proud to serve.

Olmstead

Communications Supervisor

~on the Central California coastline~

" Not presumed to be an official statement of my employing agency. "

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