911 Public Awareness Campaign

About the Program

Category: Risk and Emergency Management (Best in Category)

Year: 2014

Rutherford County has created a Public Awareness Campaign in regards to cell phone use when calling 911. A problem Rutherford County sees too regularly is a citizen will call 911 from a cell phone and the signal goes to a tower outside Rutherford County. The citizen gets the wrong county’s 911 Center, the dispatcher does not always realize it, and EMS is sent from the wrong county. The problem is compounded by more people not having land lines, numerous people living along our borders, and Rutherford County's mountains and valleys. The purpose of the campaign is to inform citizens that it is imperative to always verify their county and location when calling 911 on their cell phone. 911 dispatchers will identify their county when answering a call, but in an emergency the caller may not hear them identify the county. The campaign also stresses that if a citizen is connected to a bordering county’s 911 Center, they will be immediately routed to Rutherford County 911 to complete the call. Since starting the campaign in February and March 2014, several counties in North Carolina and South Carolina have picked up the campaign and are using it in their communities as well.