Add It Up: ‘Atlanta 911, thank you for holding’
November 21, 2009 at 12:46 pm by Benjamin Fisher in Add it upNumber of 911 calls the Atlanta Police Department received between May 10 and July 31 of this year: 243,938
Number of calls 911 staffers kept on hold for an “unacceptable” amount of time during that time period: 30,813
Percentage of Atlanta 911 calls that were placed on hold in December 2008: 33
Longest period of time, in minutes, that WSB-TV/Channel 2 found a 911 caller was reportedly placed on hold: 38
Number of minutes a West End home burned in May before firefighters were dispatched by the 911 call center: 17
Number of minutes Rachel Wittenburg waited for a 911 operator in September while her daughter suffered a seizure: 7
Average number of seconds in which emergency calls are answered, according to former call center director Miles Butler in August: 12
Number of seconds it’s considered “acceptable” for a 911 caller to wait on hold: 40 seconds
Number of calls placed to Atlanta 911 in 2008 that were “abandoned” by the caller: 55,591
Atlanta’s 2008 crime ranking among 268 cities with more than 100,000 people: 14
Sources: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta Police Department, WSB-TV
November 22nd, 2009 at 4:03 pm
I always have heard that when help is needed and seconds count, the police are minutes away. I guess in a lot of cases, hours is more like it. Folks, get and learn to use guns. Get a GFL. The police cannot protect you, and they seem to be unable to even take the fucking police report after the fact in a timely manner. As has always been the case to some degree, but especially now, your safety is in YOUR hands. So quit being chickenshits and buy a gun. (The criminals already have theirs, so you’re just evening the score.) Not to sound like a gun nut, but I promise you that bump in the night is not nearly as horrifying and scary when you’ve got a 12-gauge or a .38 handy…if you don’t want to actually have to shoot anyone, get a pump shotgun…and rack the slide to chamber a shell–even the most hardened, drug-addicted criminal will most likely hit the trail posthaste. Something daunting about that sound.