By Liz McMahan
An estimated 40,000 to 50,000 cell phone users in Muskogee County are at risk of not being able to make immediate connections when they dial 911, said Police Chief Rex Eskridge.
“If you dial 911 from your cell phone right now, depending on which tower it goes to, it may go to another 911 location or, if it comes to Muskogee, it’s going to come in on a regular phone line as opposed to going to the 911 center,” Eskridge said.
That could mean a delay in the call being answered, and that delay could be critical, Eskridge said.
Officials said they hope voters will take the first step toward solving that problem and upgrading the entire emergency call system as they go to the polls Nov. 4.
In addition to voting for president, state officers and county officers, Muskogee County voters will decide two issues on the 911 system:
• To increase the monthly subscriber fee on each land line connection from 5 percent to 15 percent.
• To assess a 50-cent fee for cellular telephones with local access numbers.
The fee on land lines is calculated from the base rate and will amount to $2 to $3 per line per month, said Derek Tatum, Muskogee fire chief.
Not all Muskogee County telephone customers pay the 5 percent fee now assessed on land lines.
The 911 service now available in Muskogee serves an area about three miles around the city. Fort Gibson residents also have 911 service, said Dexter Payne, county commissioner for District 3.
There is no 911 service available to residents of Braggs, Haskell, Warner, Council Hill or other communities in Muskogee County, he said.
If someone in one of those communities dials 911 from a land line, the call goes to the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office, where it might not be answered immediately, Payne said. Once it is answered, the dispatcher refers the call to the appropriate agency. There could be up to a 30-minute delay on some of those calls, Payne said.
Revenue from the 5 percent fee now charged on land lines has dropped in direct proportion to people moving away from traditional phone service to cell phone service only, Eskridge said.
“We were averaging close to $25,000 a month,” Eskridge said. “Now, we’re averaging close to $19,000 to $20,000 a month.
“We’ve always had to subsidize the use of our 911 center,” he said. “It costs about $650,000 to operate our communications center (at the police department) and of that, the city of Muskogee has to put up close to $300,000.”
Tatum said the 911 upgrade is desperately needed by all emergency services in Muskogee County.
“Keep in mind this is computer software that was bought in 1990 or 1991, and think of it as your home computer,” he said. “If you had a 17- or 18-year-old computer, it would be running (the operating system) from way back then. We’re using old software, and we desperately need it upgraded.”
The upgrade will move the system from analog to digital and include a Computer Aided Dispatch system, Tatum said.
In all, the upgrade cost could run well over $1 million, he said.
A part of the system upgrade will include mapping the entire county, Tatum said. Part of the county now has 911 addressing, much of it doesn’t.
Many of the fire calls that come into the 911 center are transferred to the Muskogee Fire Department, where they are dispatched to either a Muskogee unit or a unit from one of the county fire departments. Dispatchers must now go to a paper map on the wall to see whose jurisdiction the fire call is in, Tatum said.
With the new system, the location will appear on a screen that not only shows the exact location, but also shows which fire department jurisdiction it is in and which department to dispatch in case backup is needed, he said.
“The computer will actually tell you this is Station Three’s run, or this is Oktaha’s run and the second unit in will be Keefeton,” he said.
The new system also will standardize how the various departments are notified, Tatum, said. Now, some departments use pagers and some the radio system. Some departments in the county may be using a party line system to notify volunteer firefighters, he said.
The new system will move the police department to the same radio system as other law enforcement agencies in the county, Eskridge said.
With the system now in use, police officers cannot directly communicate with sheriff’s deputies or Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers, he said. They must give the information to the police dispatcher, who then relays the message, he said.
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