MOBILE COUNTY, Ala. — By mid-April 2023, the Mobile County 911 dispatch center had already answered more than 87,000 calls for the year. Behind each one is a dispatcher whose first question — “What’s the address of your emergency?” — can make the difference between a fast rescue and a costly delay.
In honor of National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, local dispatchers are pulling back the curtain on how calls actually work and what callers can do to get help faster.
The Biggest Misconception: They Can’t Always Find You
Dispatcher Nikki Dunn says many callers assume the center automatically knows exactly where they are. With cell phones, that’s far from guaranteed — a wireless call can hit any tower in any location, so dispatchers often have only an estimate until the caller fills in the details.
“We have to have you to help us to find out where you are,” Dunn explained. She urges callers to stay attentive, answer every question, and be patient when information gets repeated. A second agency may ask for the same location or phone number again — deliberately, she said, to confirm the details in case the call drops.
New Tools Pinpointing Callers
Technology is closing the gap. The center uses a program called What3Words alongside the RapidSOS platform: with a caller’s permission, dispatchers can send a link to their phone that returns three unique words corresponding to a precise location anywhere on the globe — useful for callers who don’t know where they are or who are in places without a street address.
Text-to-911 is already available in Mobile County, and dispatchers are working to bring video-to-911 online, which would let callers send footage of a scene through a link so the center can size up what resources are needed before responders arrive.
The message from the people behind the headsets during Telecommunicators Week is simple: know your location, stay on the line, and answer the questions. “It saves time,” Dunn said. “It gets you help faster.”