Unanswered 9-1-1 Calls During Outage Reportedly Double First Report
- Details
- Created on Thursday, 04 December 2014 16:07
- Written by Tyler Dumont
VERMONT - The number of people who reportedly called 9-1-1 and did not successfully reach a dispatcher during last Friday's outage has nearly doubled; and at least two of them were made by residents of the Northeast Kingdom, the VCCJ has learned.
On Wednesday, Executive Director of the state E911 board David Tucker said that 83 unique phone numbers attempted to dial 9-1-1, but due to the outage - none of the calls were successfully answered.
The outage was the second in just three months in Vermont.
It lasted for about 5 hours and 45 minutes, and was caused by a fallen tree on a FairPoint fiber line that carries 9-1-1 communications to Vermont from New Hampshire, Tucker said.
Friday's outage was unrelated to the one that occurred in August, officials said.
Tucker sent out a statement Saturday, reporting 45 unique callers had attempted to call 9-1-1 and were unsuccessful in reaching dispatch.
In that release, the state did not acknowledge they were still awaiting an additional list from 9-1-1 service provider Intrado to confirm if more calls were received during the outage.
In an interview with the VCCJ on Wednesday, Tucker said that Intrado finally got the list to state officials on Saturday evening around 6 p.m. - more than 24 hours after a majority of the emergency calls had been placed.
That's when they learned that an additional 52 calls had been placed from cell phones.
Tucker explained that the delay was a result of contractual agreements between Intrado and wireless cellular companies. He said that Intrado refused to release the cellular numbers who attempted to call 9-1-1 during the outage until carrier agreements were reviewed and approved.
"We think that public safety needs should trump contractual requirements and confidentiality," Tucker told the VCCJ.
The E911 board has now asked the Federal Communications Commission to review this process, Tucker explained; as it isn't the first time Intrado has delayed getting 9-1-1 callback numbers to state officials after outages.
There was also a significant delay during an outage three months ago, Tucker said.
In total, Tucker said the state received 97 9-1-1 calls during the outage. 14 of them were successfully answered by dispatch. This left 83 remaining callbacks for dispatchers to confirm if those who called still needed emergency services.
"When someone calls 9-1-1 and they're not able to get through, it certainly does create some delay and some panic," said Michael Wright, Chief at CALEX Ambulance in St. Johnsbury.
Dispatchers at the St. Johnsbury Dispatch Center said state officials informed them of two 9-1-1 calls that were made by Northeast Kingdom residents. One of them was a 9-1-1 hang-up, the other was a non-life threatening medical.
When asked about the local effects of the outage, Vermont State Police in St. Johnsbury and Derby referred the VCCJ to Tucker.
Despite the outage, Tucker said he hasn't yet heard of any callers who didn't get the emergency help they needed.
"We did not encounter anybody that reported that they had tried to call us and subsequently did not get their emergency responded to," Tucker said.
Sen. Bernie Sanders is joining other state officials now calling for a Public Service Board investigation into FairPoint.
Sanders says this instance was just the latest of ongoing issues with the company, and pointed to 400 formal complaints about poor service since Sept. 4.
The VCCJ attempted to contact two media representatives from FairPoint Communications on Wednesday. As of press time, they had not returned our calls.