NewsChannel 3 Investigates: Fire Chief Fights to Fix Fatal Flaws in the 911 System
Who has a better system for identifying and processing mobile phone calls? The 911 emergency system or Domino’s Pizza? If you said Domino’s you’re right.
January 30, 2014, Jordan Soto’s parents find her on the floor. They call 911 and paramedics respond, but dispatchers send Santa Barbara firefighters to the wrong address on the other side of town.
“Our dispatcher is giving them emergency medical instructions on how to perform CPR. They keep going, ‘where’s the fire truck, where’s the fire truck, where’s the fire truck?'” said Santa Barbara City Fire Chief Pat McElroy.
The 24-year old mother dies. The Soto’s claim firefighters arrived 22 minutes later. Fire officials said it was 12 minutes. Either way, it was too long.
“We were frantic. Where’s the paramedics? We don’t hear any sirens. It’s nuts, we could have carried her there by now,” said Cindy Soto.
Jordan’s mother, had never spoken on camera about her daughters death until now.
“I think about this almost everyday. At some point, I think about how much I miss her. She may be alive today,” said Soto.
“Most people will intuitively reach for their cell phone because they think it’s quicker. May not be!” said McElroy.
Santa Barbara Fire Chief Pat McElroy has spent more than a year identifying what went wrong that night and how to fix it.
We start in 1967 when President Lyndon Johnson commissioned law enforcement to come up with one phone number for emergencies, 911. In 1973, Governor Ronald Reagan created a state fund to pay for the new 911 system. The tax still shows up on hard line phone bills.
“So this is a hard line phone, that’s what this system was built on,” said Chief McElroy.
In the early 70’s, the first mobile phones appeared. They were mostly used in vehicles.
“The decision was made and legislation enacted that all of those calls would go to the California Highway Patrol,” said Chief McElroy.
In the 90’s, cell phone use exploded. Now, when someone calls 911 from a mobile phone, chances are, the CHP gets it.
The calls go to a P-SAP or Public Safety Answering Point dispatch center. There are 450 P-SAP’s in California. The CHP runs only 25 of them, but it handles 49-percent of the 20-million 911 calls a year.
“So the CHP is carrying too heavy of a load. Just common sense would tell you, with that volume of calls you’ll be getting, ‘all of our operators are busy’ or the calls dropped or put on hold,” said McElroy.
In the Soto case, the 911 call was routed to CHP dispatch in Ventura, not Santa Barbara dispatch and that started a series of mistakes.
Why did the call go to Ventura CHP? The reception area for the cell tower near the Soto home touches the 101 freeway. So the call went to the CHP.
“The problem is, we don’t have a landline. We called 911 from a cell phone and they were obviously confused. The 911 operator kept asking us, ‘where are you? We can’t find you.’ We gave her directions off Mission and they ended up in Montecito somehow,” said Soto.
Even worse, the Soto’s live just two blocks from Santa Barbara Fire Station Five.
May 23, 2014. The Isla Vista massacre kills six people and hurts 14. 911 calls flood cell sites inside Storke Tower on the UCSB campus.
“All of the calls picked up from that tower still go to the Ventura CHP. Why? never corrected,” said McElroy.
That problem had been identified in 2011. But it was never fixed until well after the Isla Vista attacks.
“I’ve made a 911 call from right outside this office and it went to Ventura CHP,” said McElroy pointing out the window toward Chapala Street in downtown Santa Barbara.
The chief says the federal government has determined that 10,000 Americans die every year from this flaw in the 911 system. He says the current out-dated system based on hardline phones can be upgraded and it will save lives.
Chief McElroy points out that if Google, Uber and yes, Domino’s Pizza can use the latest technology, so can the State of California.
“I wanna be able to say we’re doing something. that we didn’t go, ‘yea that’s just the way things are now,'” said McElroy.
“If anything good could come out of Jordan’s death would be that changing the system to where the death’s stopped or at leas they had a better chance.,” said Soto.
Chief McElroy believes much of the problem can be fixed without any cost. He said it’s a matter of getting the phone carriers and the state to accept change and do something about it.
If money is needed, where would it come from? Tax revenue is down because people are disconnecting their old hard line phones and going mobile.
Here’s the best advice we can give you. If you call 911 from a mobile phone, be ready to give the operator your exact location, even which city you are in.
Assemblyman Das Williams has introduced AB 1564 to make changes to the 911 system.
We also contacted the California Office of Emergency Services that oversees the 911 system. Officials did not answer our specific questions, but they issued this written response:
The Cal OESPublic Safety Communications Office works closely with California state and local agencies, and telecommunications companies, to maintain the statewide 9-1-1 system. We are committed to managing and improving the system to ensure that all calls are routed as efficiently as possible. We routinely monitor the changing communications technology so the 9-1-1 system is updated to improve service. We are encouraged by promising new technologies to improve call routing and response such as through next generation 9-1-1 technologies and Text to 9-1-1. However, we cannot rely on technology alone. Thousands of dispatchers throughout the state are also a critical link to ensure the emergency response is handled by the most appropriate first responders. These resources ensure California is positioned to provide the most efficient 9-1-1 service to it’s citizen now and in the future.
William D. Anderson
Acting Assistant Director
California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services
Public Safety Communications
