Pike E911 director briefs county commissioners

By TOM KANE

MILFORD, PA — A man got lost at 5:00 p.m. during the winter in Promised Land State Park and, as darkness descended, couldn’t find his way out.

A 10 year-old boy, visiting his relatives who lived in a gated community, went out for a walk with his young cousin, and was abandoned by the cousin after an argument. He had to find his way in the maze of roads in a strange neighborhood. He walked for a spell but couldn’t find his relatives’ house.

Both of these lost souls pulled out their cell phones and dialed 911. Luckily, both were in townships in Pike that had E911— Enhanced 911.

Pike County has been gradually converting from 911 to Enhanced 911.

“These two stories demonstrate how more effective E911 is over simple 911,” said Bernard Swartwood, director of communications and the head of the county Communications Center.

Because E911 was in effect, he told the commissioners at their meeting on January 3, the com-center dispatcher not only got the voice of the two, but also could find out their locations.

“E911 gives us more than just the voice,” Swartwood said. “It gives us the voice, the phone number, the name of the phone subscriber, the physical address and, in the case of a wireless phone, the location. Even though the phone they used was wireless and was not a landline phone, we could get the coordinates where they were located. We led the staff of Promised Land to within 1,000 feet of the lost man. They identified him among the trees and led him out.”

The young boy —like many kids today — also had his own cell phone. Luckily for him, the con-center dispatcher was able to talk him through the maze of roads and bring him directly in front of his relative’s house, Swartwood said. This is the kind of thing E911 can do, he said.

The entire county has not yet been wired for E911. “We’ve reached about 65 percent of the communities,” Swartwood said. “It’s a slow, almost painful process to get the service to each community. We’ve been at this for 10 years.”

Outlying areas in Pike – in the west and south – are still to be introduced into the system.

For E911 to work, some street and road names in the county have to be changed so there would be no duplication of names. What makes the process of conversion even slower is that E911 demands that every homeowner post the house number outside and that the numbers and road names have been verified by the post office and phone company.

E911 is like a reverse phone book which uses the number that the caller is calling from and looks up the street location. This is why house numbers must be posted to make the system work.

“Our biggest problem is that people don’t post their number outside their house on the road,” said Swartwood. Many of the homes are second homes and residents don’t think about adopting the new postal number, he said. “Some don’t even remember what their number is and, if they sell their house, can’t tell the new owners the number.

“Some folks have even fought us about changing the address and number because they don’t want the inconvenience of having to change their address on all their documents,” he said.

“We feel that this program is essential for the safety of our residents,” said Harry Forbes, chairman of the commissioners. “Continue being as aggressive as you have been and get this project done.”