Use of 911 emergency line expected to increase in Maine

Mainers are using the Enhanced-911 emergency line with increasing frequency to report crimes, neighborhood squabbles, houses on fire and, on at least one occasion, a goldfish down the drain.

Some 430,000 calls were logged last year, and the total is on pace to be thousands higher at the close of 2003. The state doesn’t keep track of how many calls made to 911 each year are actual emergencies.

Compared with other New Englanders, Mainers have not been very active 911 callers. There were enough calls in Connecticut to add up to one for every resident last year. Rhode Island counted one call for every two people, Massachusetts slightly fewer. In Maine and Vermont, it was about one for every three people.

The emergency phone system, which turned 2 in September, will cost about $9 million to run this year. The money comes from 50-cent line charges on every phone bill in Maine each month.

Before Sept. 26, 2001, only about half of Maine’s population could dial 911 in emergencies, said Albert Gervenack, director of the Emergency Services Communications Bureau. The calls were converted to seven-digit numbers in telephone lines.

Dispatchers then had to ask for names, addresses and information, dial another seven-digit line to notify police, fire or medical responders and relay that information all over again.

“You’re talking about a three-, four-minute downtime just to get the units going,” said Capt. Ray Lafrance of the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department.

With Enhanced-911 in place, name, address and phone number pop up on dispatchers’ screens about four seconds after dialing the last “1,” Gervenack said. The correct police, fire and medical units for that caller’s address also pop up.

Now, the only place in Maine without Enhanced-911 is the town of Lincoln and its exchange, 794.

For now, 911 calls placed on cell phones aren’t easy to track. Those calls are answered by the nearest state police barracks, in Gray, Houlton, Augusta or Orono. The dialers’ exact locations are unknown.

Callers who try to misuse 911 for nefarious purposes can be exposed quickly.

A man dialed 911 from a pay phone in Ogunquit to report a bogus three-car accident on the other side of town, hoping to divert police so he could rob a bank.

The man then walked across the street and held up KeyBank for $24,000.

Dispatchers, using the 911 system, could tell he used a pay phone across the street from the bank, far from the accident he reported.

Police sealed off the phone within minutes and an ambulance returning from the scene of the phony accident got the suspect’s license plate number as he sped by. Police arrested their suspect that afternoon.