The college shut down last Thursday due to a water main break on Ludlow Ave. I was going in late for a meeting when I received two calls from co-workers plus one from our automated system notifying me of the closure.
I learned this week that none of the students in my program received notification and showed up for an evening class. The other faculty senators had similar experiences with their students.
Phone trees and automated notification systems are only as good as their information. Your company or agency’s notification system needs to be checked and validated even during the emergency.
The point was brought home again when on Wednesday a student came running into my office in a panic. A friend of hers was in one of the parking garages complaining of breathing problems.
The secretary called 911 while the student talked with the other student on her cell phone. The 911 dispatcher first informed my secretary that our address did not exist (remember, I work at a community college!).
Next, the dispatcher said she had to reroute the call to another dispatcher since we weren’t in her jurisdiction.
We did finally get the fire department and our campus police to respond. Later, I ran into one of the adjunct instructors for the fire program who is also a city firefighter. I shared with him the events from earlier and he just shook his head saying he wasn’t surprised. The city no longer has fire dispatchers, the 911 dispatchers are all now police dispatchers.
The dispatchers are burned out due to the abuses of the 911 system. Every call is an “emergency” so they dispatchers no longer have a sense of urgency. People have learned how to game the 911 system so they will claim “chest pains” every time they want a paramedic to run them to the ER.
We have these amazing tools and incredibly well trained and dedicated first responders but the community is allowing this to be abused. The results are now when an emergency happens, it is difficult to get help dispatched.
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