ELLSWORTH – Hancock County now has Enhanced-911, and so far there have been no problems with the new system, according to a Hancock County official.

Enhanced-911, a computer system that provides emergency phone operators with information about where 911 calls are placed, went on line Feb. 11 in Hancock County, the last county in the state to have this service.

With the system, the caller’s address is displayed on a computer screen, which enables emergency personnel to respond to where they are needed, even if the caller cannot speak.

As of late last week, the county’s E-911 answering center, which is next to the sheriff’s office at the Hancock County Courthouse, had received four 911 calls, according to Linda Dunno, Hancock County’s regional communications director.

“They went well,” Dunno said last week. “People just have to get used to calling 911.”

The new E-911 call center, also called a Public Safety Answering Point, receives all 911 calls made on land lines in Hancock County, except those made on Mount Desert Island, according to Dunno.

E-911 calls on Mount Desert Island have been and will continue to be handled, at no charge to other Mount Desert Island towns, by the town of Bar Harbor. Such calls made on cell phones have been and will continue to be handled by Maine State Police.

With the new system in Ellsworth, incoming 911 calls are answered by county operators, who then forward the call to the appropriate agency. Calls from Ellsworth and Bucksport, or towns that receive dispatching services from Bucksport or Ellsworth, are forwarded to dispatchers in those municipalities.

Calls from towns that already receive dispatch services from Hancock County will be handled directly by the E-911 operators in the county’s communications department, Dunno said.

Not every town on Hancock County has finished upgrading its address system that will be used with the E-911 system, Dunno said. It is important that these new addresses be posted where they can be seen by emergency personnel and that children learn their home address and phone number, she said.

The equipment and training to run the new system have been provided to Hancock County by the state, which has raised the money for the system with surcharges on Verizon phone bills, according to Dunno. Residents of Hancock County have been paying those surcharges for years, even though they have not had the E-911 system until now, she said.

“Hancock [County] is finally getting some of its money back,” Dunno said.

With the implementation of the new system, towns in Hancock County are no longer allowed to promote or advertise their seven-digit emergency phone numbers, even though those direct phone numbers still work, Dunno said.

Dunno said the new system is no more likely to result in disconnected calls than the use of the existing seven-digit numbers. With the Verizon system, county operators can operate touch-display systems for deaf callers, can contact Verizon technical support services with the touch of a button, and can contact interpreter services for callers who cannot speak English, she said.