Rockland County 911 Changes

[NJFFSA16]

(New City, New York-AP) -- Emergency calls made from cell phones
in Rockland County will soon be answered by local dispatchers
rather than by distant state police.
The state 9-1-1 Board has given Rockland County permission to
have Rockland calls answered by dispatchers from the county
sheriff's office as soon as next month.
Currently, such calls are answered by state police, usually in
Orange County but sometimes much farther away.
In 2001, four men from New Jersey crashed into the woods near
Bear Mountain and their 911 call reached state police in Monroe,
Orange County. Partly because they were unable to tell the police
where they were, the rescue took six hours.
Pablo Ramos, Rockland's 9-1-1 coordinator, says Rockland
emergency calls are best made on regular phones - because addresses
can be pinpointed.
Ramos says Rockland has five major carriers Nextel, A-T-and-T,
Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile and he expects all cellular phone
companies to be hooked up within six months.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

As a Rockland firefighter, I can tell you the current method of receiving 911 calls from cell phones is a horror. 9 times out of 10, the call is received at SP in Monroe and then transferred. Recently a fellow Rockland FF was driving through Harriman State Park when his car caught fire. He dialed 911 and after several attempts got through to SP Monroe who transferred the call to 44-Control in Pomona. By the time the FD was dispatched it had been a good 30 minutes since his initial call.

I'm looking forward to see how the new system works and see what the effect on response times will be.