Elk Grove brings Smart 911 Northern California

Recently our local city emergency services partnered with Smart 911 to improve emergency response, becoming the first city in Northern California to implement the system. The system allows citizens to proactively provide important information about yourself and your family to the 911 center before an emergency happens. The system is tied to your phone number so even if you call from a cell phone, if it's registered in the system, they will have your information. You can give them as much or as little information as you are comfortable giving.

From Smart911.com:  Smart911 allows you to proactively provide details on your family and home that 9-1-1 may need in order to send help in the event of an emergency. It is private and secure, and funded by local municipalities and 9-1-1 centers so that it is free to you.  Smart911 is endorsed by citizens, community groups and public safety officials. While not yet deployed everywhere across the U.S., its availability is growing daily. Even if it is not yet in your area, it will work anywhere you travel.

Smart911 also assists in finding callers. According to the Federal Communications Commission, 70 percent of calls to 911 are from mobile devices with limited location information. Smart911 allows residents to associate their family’s mobile phones with home and work addresses, as well as specific family members, which can assist with quickly dispatching the appropriate response team to the right location. 
Smart911 is a free service available to all residents, and officials describe it as “100 percent private and secure.”

Call 911 from a cell phone?

What is the emergency response number in your area? Most areas use 911, which if you have a landline available, is a great system. When someone calls 911 all their location information is available to the dispatcher. You could, theoretically, put the phone down without saying a word, an help would be able to find you. However, nowadays, with most people having cell phones, more people do not have landlines or are just outside where a landline is not available. Do you know what happens if you call 911 from a cell phone? Did you know the call does not go to a 911 dispatcher as it does when you call from a
landline.

Cell phone technology has not quite reached the point where it can tell exactly where you are and locate the nearest 911 call center. As a result, if you call 911 in California, you will actually be calling a CHP (Highway Patrol) call center, possibly nowhere near your location. It is also not an emergency line so the phone may not get picked up as quickly as a 911 call center. The system still works, but you must be aware that you will need to give details about your location so they can transfer your call to the appropriate call center.