Centre County Introduces 911 Texting Service

Centre County law enforcement has made some big updates to its 911 system. 

Sometimes people in an emergency situation are not able to call 911, whether it’s because they are speech disabled, deaf or in a situation where they don’t want to have someone hear them call.

With the newest addition to the county’s system, those not able to call are now able to text 911 with their emergency and location to initiate a texting conversation with a 911 dispatcher.

“We encourage those who can call 911 to do so,” said Centre County Emergency Communications Director Dale Neff. “But if they are in a situation where they can’t complete a voice call, being able to text 911 is an ideal situation.”

Although any phone with or without a contract can make a 911 voice call, only phones under a current contract with texting enabled can use this feature. At this point in time, 911 dispatchers can only receive texts with alphabetical characters. They are not yet able to receive pictures without having to contact the cell phone carrier in order to get the picture, which greatly slows down the process, Neff said.

Having been put into place a few weeks ago, the ability to text 911 has been used multiples times by residents and has been working effectively, Neff said. 

With the help of Penn State, the county has also completely revamped their radio system. With this $18 million upgraded system that went live March 2014, the county is now able to have substantially wider coverage throughout the county. Over the past two years, 19 radio towers across the county have been replaced in order to give coverage to spots never covered before.

“There are a lot of hills and little areas that are hard to reach in the county and we had a lot of dead spots,” said Centre County Administrator Tim Boyde. “These areas now have good radio communication because of the upgraded system. We now have 95% coverage of the county.”

With this upgraded system, first responders can now easily communicate with each other during an event or emergency situation. 

“This upgrade makes our community much safer because we now have the ability to dispatch individuals and have responders talk to each other more effectively,” said Boyde. “Communication is critical not only for individuals in an emergency situation, but also for those responding to it.”

Feedback from first responders has been very positive. They are very pleased with the clarity and coverage offered from the upgrade.

“From a safety stand point, it doesn’t get much better than that,” Boyde said.