MARINE CORPS BASE HAWAII, KANEOHE BAY, Hawaii -- All 911 emergency calls from MCB Hawaii, Kaneohe Bay, are now routed to the Regimental Operations Command and Control Center at Pearl Harbor, after a Feb. 18 change to the dispatching system that previously routed some base 911 calls to the Honolulu Police Department.
In an emergency, every second counts, and it is imperative to emergency services to get the most accurate information about the emergency and the location as soon possible, said Master Sgt. Dean Jordan, services chief at the Provost Marshals Office.
"Before the system was changed, any Verizon telephone line on base would be routed to HPD," said Michael Jones, chief of the Federal Fire Department in Oahu. "Most of these lines were the lines in housing. Federal lines are routed to the ROCCC."
According to a Pearl Harbor center official, the reason the call would be routed from HPD to them, is because if the call was dropped, HPD might not have been able to gather an accurate location of the emergency from just a MCB Kaneohe Bay number.
According to Jones, when a call is placed to 911, the dispatcher receives additional information such as the telephone number and the location of the call automatically.
"The areas in housing that have services provided from Verizon had to be mapped out very accurately, and Verizon had to separate the numbers on base from those off base by identifying them with a different prefix," said Jones. "This information was provided to ROCCC for the identification software to work properly here on MCB Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii."
According to Jones, the industry standard for an emergency call is 60 seconds before the appropriate emergency vehicles and crew should be dispatched.
"The transferring of calls back and forth can be devastating to an emergency situation because every second counts," said Jones. "A recent fire in a home on base proved the necessity of the system change, as the call was routed to the correct people as fast as possible. I believe the system change had a positive effect on the outcome of that fire."
Cellular phone calls are automatically sent to HPD.
"In the future, technology should reach the point when cellular phones will be identifiable by location to assist 911 calls when they come in," said Jones.
For now the location of cellular phone calls remains a mystery for 911 operators until provided by the caller.
"To limit the dependence on such systems, there are some things 911 callers can remember," said Jordan. "Make sure you state your emergency, clearly; give an accurate street address of your location; and stay on the line until emergency services arrive."