County provides residents with ways to communicate during emergencies
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Oglethorpe County 911 dispatcher Amelia Priest surveys her workstation at the Oglethorpe County Sheriff's Department on Feb. 2, 2024. (Photo/Zeke Palermo)
Residents can now text 911 when they need emergency services.
Oglethorpe County 911 has joined 33 other public safety answering points in Georgia that accept and communicate with residents through text message, in addition to the traditional phone call.
Users can also share a live video feed and photos with 911 dispatchers through a service called Prepared Live.
Both technologies are useful for situations where it would be unsafe to call and verbally communicate with a 911 dispatcher, Oglethorpe County 911 Director Angela Jackson said.
“We like the voice calls, if we can get them,” she said, “but if somebody is in a place where that’s all they can do — is text — well, obviously we want them to text.”
Residents can text 911 like they would a regular phone number. Then, they can continue to communicate in that text thread unless they want to use Prepared Live, in which case the user will receive a link to the service from a separate number.
The 911 and Prepared Live numbers are staffed by the dispatchers at the Oglethorpe County Sheriff’s Office. Automated texts are sent, but only to mark the beginning and end of an exchange.
Jackson said domestic violence events are particular instances where these services could make a difference.
“One (call) pops in my head where her husband knew she was calling 911, and she just had to put the phone down,” Jackson said. “And then, of course, he knew that’s who she was calling. And then it got 10 times worse for her.”
In situations like that, Prepared Live allows users to share a live video feed with the dispatcher, but keeps the user's screen black to provide the illusion of no call being made.
“(Dispatchers) can actually see the patient or somebody who’s in medical distress to see what is actually happening,” Sheriff David Gabriel said. “On the other side, if there’s a crime in progress, (callers) can certainly live stream that to dispatch, and dispatch can get very accurate information about what’s happening and who’s involved.”
Prepared Live has been available since August, but text-to-911 went online in January. The county has had the technology in place for text-to-911 since 2021, but Jackson said the department couldn’t use it until it received approval for a third dispatcher per shift.
“With two dispatchers on at a time, it wasn’t put out there because it would take longer to communicate and one dispatcher would be (responsible) for all the other 911 calls and talking to the responders on the radio,” Jackson said via text message.
Both text-to-911 and Prepared Live were free for the county to set up, and users will not incur additional costs outside of their phone plan to use them.
While Jackson hopes the system is only used when needed, she sees a use for it in non-emergency situations: “Something like there’s a cow out, there’s a car abandoned in the middle of the road, any type of call like that.”