Kootenai County

County enhanced 911 nears completion

By BRENT ANDREWS, Staff Writer - The Press, Friday Feb. 4, 2000

POST FALLS - Kootenai County is quickly moving toward enhanced 911 service for every address, a key official told a group of emergency agency leaders Thursday.

But county 911 director Jeff Blume said it will still take time -- and money -- to bring cellular and wireless telephone providers into the network.

Speaking to the county's Disaster Services Council, which includes representatives of the police, ambulance, fire and other emergency agencies, Blume painted a hopeful picture about nearly a year's work toward enhanced 911.

"I think in a few years you're going to see things that Kootenai County didn't know were available", he said during the breakfast meeting at Steve's Sports Dugout.

Enhanced 911 service is when a call center has the ability to see on a computer screen the telephone number, address and name of the person making the call, as well as a list of fire, police and ambulance agencies serving that location.

But E-911 also opens other doors, Blume said, including the potential ability to provide blueprints of buildings and descriptions of any hazardous materials stored there.

As part of the year-long E-911 effort, rural Kootenai County zip code areas have been scoured and every structure has been given an address. GTE and the Postal Service have the addresses and are confirming them.

Residents of Whorley, St. Maries and Midimont zip code areas have been notified of pending changes. Other rural residents will soon be getting letters as well.

"We're in the last and final stage of this project", said Blume after Thursday's meeting. "Basically, we're moving through the county, on a telephone exchange - by - telephone exchange basis, and providing E-911 opportunity."

While GTE and postal officials create a database of addresses, county 911 centers will soon upgrade computers with software that can handle the data.

Officials are meeting with Motorola early next week to develop a schedule for software installation. The process is expected to be completed this spring.

Until the enhances 911 centers answer calls, "They are currently not getting an address or the name of the person or any indication of who should be responding", said Blume. Dispatchers must rely on the caller to provide that information.

In Shoshone County, which completed its E-911 system, response times have improved.

"If a person calls that can't talk, then we have an address that we can send (responders) to", said Undersheriff Nelson Morris.

Shoshone sheriff's dispatchers previously had to rely on a call to GTE to check it's number database, "and it was 10 to 15 minutes before GTE could get back to us", Morris said.

Once Kootenai County's enhanced 911 effort is completed, work will continue to bring cellular and wireless providers into the system.

The move toward enhanced 911, especially a requirement that house numbers be posted prominently, has been criticized as an invasion of privacy by some residents. Many homes still don't have numbers that can be seen from the road.

Michael Gallo-Pierce of Rathdrum, who serves on several emergency boards, said during Thursday's meeting that numbering is necessary for improved 911 response.

"A family has an emergency, and EMS can't find them, I bet real shortly after that they'll put up a number", he said.

Busy, busy ...

The Kootenai County 911 central dispatch center in Coeur d'Alene serves rural and incorporated areas of the county with the exception of Post Falls and Rathdrum, which have their own 911 center logged 2,639 calls in January, and averaged 2,000 calls per month in 1999. The post Falls-Rathdrum center logged 253 calls in January, and averaged 295 calls per month for 1999.