Washington, D.C., officials reviewed a 911 dispatching incident. Monday, D.C.’s Office of Unified Communications sent the city's Fire and EMS Department to an incorrect address, according to walkie-talkie radio traffic we monitored using OpenMHz. At about 5:25 p.m., the OUC 911 center dispatched FEMS for a cardiac arrest to 22 M St. NE. Three minutes later, FEMS replied to OUC that the written information associated with the incident was changed to 22 M St. SW. But dispatchers didn't appear to have told first responders about the change in address. FEMS also asked that the call be dispatched to the properly located units. About one minute later, OUC dispatched it to the apparently correct units. The distance between the addresses according to MapQuest is about 3 miles. FEMS "transported [a] patient in critical condition to a 'near-by' hospital," the fire department's spokesperson emailed us. Officials with OUC "are currently looking into this call," and representatives from his department "are assisting," said the spokesperson. He couldn't say if the patient died as 911 expert Dave Statter reported. The address in the wrong quadrant came from a caller to 911 and wasn't caused by OUC, said the agency's spokesperson in an interview. She said details weren't immediately available to show whether the other potential dispatching problems associated with the heart attack were caused by staff, caller error or other issues. It's the fifth heart attack call in which OUC has dispatched help to the wrong address this year, Statter wrote. A candidate for an at-large seat on the D.C. Council, Eric Rogers, tweeted, "This is an area of interest I’d like to pick up during OUC’s performance hearing this winter. I’ve been following response times and address mistakes issues" for many years. The 911 center has come under scrutiny for other apparent errors, though it's not known how many of those incidents are the fault of its staff versus people calling for help but reporting incorrect details. For our past news stories on this, see here and here.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai outlined a busy agenda Tuesday for commissioners’ Sept. 30 meeting. It includes votes on 3.45-3.55 and 4.9 GHz, in what he described as a “Big Fall Kickoff.” Another order would slash IP captioned telephone service rates. Also on the agenda are two cable TV rules revisions, a draft order on secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) and secure handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) implementation, and a notice of inquiry on tackling 911 fee diversion by states.

The head of the Washington, D.C.’s 911 call center welcomes a possible audit by the Office of the D.C. Auditor next year, amid a growing furor over reported dispatching problems. “I know what we do in this agency,” D.C. Office of Unified Communications Director Karima Holmes said Thursday on WAMU(FM) Washington’s The Kojo Nnamdi Show. “It is not a systematic problem in D.C. 911. These things happen, but fortunately we have safety nets in place to make sure they don’t.” Holmes disputed 911 dispatch expert Dave Statter’s reports alleging frequent mistakes that others have also glommed onto in criticizing OUC and saying its errors could cost first responders priceless time answering emergency medical and other calls for help. “Sharing snippets of radio traffic and other incomplete piecemeal records just do not accurately convey the full picture here,” said Holmes. “Dave Statter is not my oversight.” The mayor, deputy mayor and city council oversee OUC and “have this information,” she said. “All of that gets investigated, and we do a full investigation” that includes the 911 call and what information the caller gave, she said. “Anytime an error is made, we address it.” A caller to the radio program identified as Christina said her daughter’s teenage friend watched her mother die from a heart attack as D.C. 911 sent responders to the wrong address. Holmes replied it’s a tragic situation, though she didn’t know the specific incident. “Things are hard,” she said. “People are in the middle of emergencies, and sometimes that address is wrong, and sometimes it is the call-taker” who “takes the call wrong.” Statter told the radio program he wants more transparency and accountability from OUC. Holmes told the D.C. Council only four times last year when dispatchers were sent to incorrect addresses and 21 times in five years, but Statter “can show 38 bad addresses since December,” he said. OUC recently responded to our Freedom of Information Act request for records on previous 911 dispatching issues (here), and Thursday we sent another FOIA request for records on three late-August incidents. OUC responded more than 24 hours later to our request for comment on our Wednesday report about those three incidents: “We caution against the use of publicly available partial records of emergency operations as they generally do not include the full emergency response and may inaccurately present critical variables such as the nature or fluidity of the emergency, the engagement between the caller and call-taker, and/or the extent or duration of the dispatch,” a spokesperson emailed.

Cable and wireline subscribers without service due to tropical storms Laura and Marco has dropped from 133,195 to 124,509 in the affected portions of Louisiana and Texas, said Thursday’s FCC disaster information reporting service release. Cellsites down decreased from 7.7% to 4.7%. One Louisiana public service answering point continues to reroute 911 calls, and KBCA Alexandria, Louisiana, remains down, along with 14 FM stations and two AMs -- one fewer AM than Wednesday (see 2009020061).

There were 133,195 subscribers reported out of service in the portions of Louisiana and Texas affected by tropical storms Laura and Marco and covered by the FCC’s disaster information reporting system, said Wednesday’s DIRS report. That’s a decrease from the 157,337 reported Tuesday (see 2008310044). The new report shows 7.7% of cellsites down in the affected area, down from 9%. One Louisiana public service answering point continues to reroute 911 calls. KBCA Alexandria, Louisiana, is down, along with 14 FM stations and three AMs.

Washington, D.C., apparently incorrectly dispatched emergency medical services several times in as many days, according to our analysis of walkie-talkie radio traffic. We listened to three such incidents from this and last week. For more, see here, here and here, including the radio transmissions marked with a star. That's on top of many other such shortcomings observed in recent months.

The FCC deactivated the disaster information reporting system for most of the 19 states in the area affected by storms Laura and Marco, said public notices through Monday. The system remains active for 35 counties in Louisiana and three in Texas, said Monday’s PN. “The areas of greatest challenge remain in [Louisiana's] Lake Charles, Sulphur, Shreveport, and the coastal markets,” said Verizon. Monday’s DIRS report showed 5.2 percent of cellsites down in the affected area, and one Louisiana public service answering point rerouting 911 calls. Two TV stations and 18 FMs are out of service in the affected area, along with 188,985 cable and wireline subscribers. A Wireline Bureau order temporarily waived the agency’s phone number aging rule, to allow quick reassignment of numbers in Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Puerto Rico and Arkansas. The waiver took effect immediately, and will expire May 28, the order said. It will also apply in other areas for which a state of emergency due to the storms is declared, the order said. “We also encourage all service providers in the areas affected by Hurricane Laura to waive call forwarding, message center, and voicemail service charges for affected customers.”

There are 334,791 cable and wireline subscribers without service in the affected areas of the 19 states covered by the FCC’s disaster information reporting system for tropical storms Laura and Marco, said Friday’s DIRS report. Twenty-four FM stations are out of service, plus four TV stations and one AM station, the report said. 911 calls are being rerouted from five public service answering points in Louisiana and Texas, and 2.2 percent of cellsites are down in the affected area.

The FCC greatly extended the area covered by the disaster information reporting system for tropical storms Laura and Marco, said a public notice Wednesday. Reports will now cover counties in Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington, D.C., Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Illinois, along with previously included states Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas. Reports from communications providers in those originally included states and Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee were due starting Thursday, while the providers in the rest were to begin submitting reports Friday. The extended coverage was requested by the Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the PN said. There were 192,915 cable and wireline subscribers out of service in the affected areas reporting on Thursday, and 911 calls were being rerouted from two public service answering points in Louisiana and one in Texas that were evacuated, said Thursday’s DIRS report. The report showed 1.3 percent of cellsites down in the affected area, with three TV stations, six FM stations and one AM station out of service.

With the launch of FirstNet, and federal focus on interoperable communications, federal-local government relationships have improved markedly over the past 10 years, experts said Thursday on the final day of IWCE's virtual conference. Others said gaps remain.