Well, I would hate to say I predicted the future… but this was really no ones fault.  There was an article in the local paper today about a house fire where everything was a completely lost because fire departments did not get there for almost 40 minutes.

But the reason there was a delay in response is because of where the house is located, it is built in one county, but is only a few yards from another county, and is close to three different townships.  While the owner of the property made sure that he was registered in one county (even having the 911 system run tests that when a call was made, it went to the correct county 911 center) so that if a call was made, the closest fire department would be the responding company.  The problem came up that when his neighbor called 911 they got the other county 911 center.

The responding fire company was 20 miles on the wrong side of the development, and was 30 minutes after that the mistake was realized and a fire company on the other side was called in to respond.  By the time anyone got there though, it was too late to do anything.

One way this could be corrected so that it does not occur in the future, is to have detailed maps that show how the fire department coverage is spread out and how it goes between counties; so that even if a call went to a different countie’s 911 center they would call the correct fire department.  This would have to be interactive, so that an address could be inputted and plotted.

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