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Coosa gets E-911 service
Published 7:26pm Monday, November 1, 2010Coosa County is in the final stages of a years-long process to update its 911 service, making it one of the last areas in the state to do so.
The final step is a complete reconciliation of converted street addresses – as opposed to Route and Box designations – being matched to phone numbers.
“We’re establishing an enhanced 911 telephone system,” said Amanda Robinson, the director of the Coosa County Emergency Communications Management District. “You’ve always been able to call 911 but we were on Route and Box numbers. We’re trying to finish setting up our 911 addresses. “
Coosa County Sheriff Terry Wilson and his department welcome the implementation of the E-911 system that will boost their ability to protect and serve the public.
“It’s from darkness to light,” he said. “We’re going from not having any 911 service to having 911 service with so much valuable information.”
The new system will instantly provide dispatchers with the name of the caller(like on a Caller ID display), where they are calling from and directions to their location.
“Now, with the new, enhanced system, the information will just pop up,” Robinson said. “Before, we had to ask a lot of questions to the caller. Now it’ll pull up that information and tell us what street they’re calling from.”
The most time consuming part of the conversion, according to Robinson, has been “getting our 90 percent matchup.” To achieve that goal, the Coosa County E-911 staff had to blanket the coverage area like census workers trying to make make sure that all Route and Box addresses got a new street address.
“Everything has been turned over to (the U.S. Postal Service’s) Address Management,” Robinson said. “All we’re waiting for is for them to release the Zip Codes.”
Once that happens, the phone numbers can be matched to the structures and the whole system will then be ready to go online.
Robinson said that many residents will have dual addresses and receive mail under both postings for a year, but that after that twelfth month the Route and Box number system will be forever phased out.
