After a Clark County resident complained on social media that they were sent to voicemail numerous times while trying to reach 911, Jason Fritz, Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency (CRESA) deputy director of 911 operations, said he was concerned as 911 doesn’t go to voicemail.
“It goes into a queue,” Fritz said of 911 calls. “It can go into a queue, and it can sound like a voicemail because it says, ‘you’ve reached 911. Do not hang up,’ and some people take that as a voicemail.”
Fritz said that CRESA recently hired a public information officer, who will begin developing public service announcements and more education on how 911 calls are processed.
“The big message is do not hang up because that will only delay somebody answering your call, because when you hang up and you call back, you go back into the bottom of the queue,” Fritz said. “So, if you were two calls down, and you were just about ready to be answered, you’re frustrated, you hang up … and again, we understand people’s frustration when they’re in a moment of crisis or an emergency [because] 20 seconds can seem like five minutes. But, when they hang up and then they call back in again, that just delays the amount of time it will take to answer their call.”
Along with educating how 911 calls are processed, Fritz said the agency will disseminate information on how the 311 non-emergency line process works, along with when 311 should be used and what to expect when calling 311.
Fritz added that 311 is used for calls that involve no imminent threat to life or property, which is where online reporting can come in handy so reports do not flood the call-takers at CRESA.
When it comes to shortening queue times, Fritz said the solution is to staff more people in the call center.
“One of the biggest things — there’s no magic fairy dust on this — we need more people, and we’ve needed people for quite a while so that we can get more people answering calls and dispatchers concentrating on just dispatching,” he said.
Currently, CRESA has some dispatchers performing double duty by dispatching and call taking.
“We really want to get them off the phone so they can concentrate on the dispatching part,” Fritz said. “But to do that, we need to hire more people and get people answering calls for us so that we can increase our call-taker volume.”
Fritz added that CRESA has been doing a “very aggressive hiring campaign.” The agency hired 20 trainees, with two now certified and taking emergency calls. With 18 trainees on the floor in the call and dispatch centers, Fritz said CRESA began a call-taking academy with a full class in September.
He said the goal is to have the budgeted staff by the first of next year, adding that around a dozen trainees may not be fully released by January 2025.
Currently, CRESA’s application window for 911 emergency communication call takers is open until Nov. 30 with an anticipation of hiring multiple positions in 2025, its website states. For more employment opportunity information, visit cresa911.org/201/Employment-Opportunities.
