What to expect when you call 911 in Kansas City — from wait times to emergency response
Emergency response is a critical service provided by local governments — and in an emergency, every minute counts.
But some agencies in the Kansas City area have drawn scrutiny recently for the amount of time they leave callers on hold.
Even when these callers get through to a dispatcher, emergency services themselves can take a while to arrive. It’s all because of a complex system of call routing and understaffed agencies that have left some in the metro demanding solutions.
Here’s what really happens when you make a call to 911 from within the Kansas City area, and what you can do to help the process go smoothly.
1. Your call bounces off the nearest cellphone tower
According to Eric Winebrenner, the public safety program director for the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC), around 83% of 911 calls made in the metro last year came from cellphones. By comparison, only around 7% came from landline phones and 8% came through the Internet.
Cellphones make calls by sending data to the nearest cell tower — there are towers all over the metro, and the signal from your call allows the tower to determine your approximate location, Winebrenner told The Star. This data is then transmitted instantly from the tower to MARC.
2. MARC directs your call to the primary emergency response agency in your area
While MARC doesn’t answer any of the area’s 911 calls, these calls are routed through its data center so they can be directed to the appropriate agency based on the location where the originate. Usually, the primary agency in your area is a police department.
This can sometimes lead to confusion if the cell tower nearest you is assigned to an agency that doesn’t cover your area. For example, if you call 911 from Leawood but the nearest cell tower to you is in Kansas City, you may be routed to the Kansas City Police Department.
In this case, Winebrenner said, the employee who answers the phone will transfer you to the correct agency. This can add time to your call, as you may have to wait on hold with the wrong agency before you get transferred to the right one.
“It happens all the time, just because of the nature of the way the cellular system is built,” Winebrenner told The Star. “Cell towers don’t know city boundaries or state lines or any of that — they just cover an area.”
3. Your primary emergency response agency answers your call
There are 43 agencies around the greater nine-county metro area that answer 911 calls for their local jurisdictions, Winebrenner said. How long you may have to wait on hold will depend on these agencies’ staffing, procedures and the number of other people calling.
The KCPD has come under scrutiny for its response times recently after a Lee’s Summit man waited an hour for an ambulance to arrive after he was attacked outside Arrowhead Stadium before a country music concert on Saturday.
Winebrenner said that long hold times are an issue around the country, primarily caused by understaffing.
“You could have 50 911 call-taking stations in your (department), but if you’ve only got three people working on answering calls, you’re going to have a queue of people trying to get their calls answered during high volume periods,” he said.
4. You may be transferred to another emergency response agency
The primary agency answering 911 calls in your area — usually your local police department — may not be the one you need. For instance, if your house is on fire, you need to get ahold of the fire department.
Police can transfer you there — but this may add to your call time as you wait on hold.
MARC tracks the wait times of 911 calls around the metro by department. The national standard for emergency calls aims for 90% of calls to be answered within 15 seconds, 95% answered within 30 seconds and 100% answered within one minute.
While MARC’s data shows that the Kansas City Fire Department regularly meets these standards, callers can only reach this agency after being transferred there by the KCPD — which regularly takes longer to answer emergency calls.
The graph below shows the percentage of calls answered by both departments within the national standard timeframes.
5. The agency collects information about your location and emergency
While cell tower data can help approximate your location, it doesn’t give emergency responders your exact address. That’s why the first question you’ll probably be asked is where you are.
Winebrenner told The Star that the most helpful information for emergency dispatchers is your street address. If you don’t know your exact location, a specific intersection is also useful to help emergency responders find where you are.
He also advised not to hang up before the call is complete. If you do, your call will remain in the cue and the agency will try to call you back. If they can’t reach you, they are required to dispatch first responders to your location to make sure you are okay. This can tie up resources that could be better used elsewhere, he said.
Instead, if you realize you don’t need emergency services, simply stay on the line and explain your mistake.
6. The agency dispatches emergency services to your location
Sometimes, the person you reach on the phone will be an emergency dispatcher. Other times, they will relay your information to a dispatcher who can radio emergency responders.
The time you will have to wait for emergency service to arrive will then depend on whether personnel like firefighters, police officers and EMTs are available. This availability is determined both by the number of other emergencies happening and by staffing shortages in police and fire departments.
“If there’s nobody available to go on your call, because there are staffing shortages… you’re going to wait,” Winebrenner said.
“They will have somebody there as soon as they can, but they may be sending somebody from a station that’s not close to where your emergency is at. So it’s going to take some time.”
Do you have more questions about emergency response in Kansas City? Ask the Service Journalism team at kcq@kcstar.com.
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