Skies will be lighting up with fireworks on Friday, but so will 911 lines. Emergency response dispatchers face a flood of calls on the fourth.
On average, about 1,900 calls come into the c Facility (ECF) in Plymouth. Officials say that number spikes on July Fourth. In 2021, over 2,700 calls came in 24 hours.
“The Fourth of July is probably our busiest holiday we see,” said Tony Martin, Director of Emergency Communications at Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office.
Martin says local 911 centers are overloaded, the surge largely due to an uptick in nonemergency fireworks complaints, meaning one less dispatcher available to answer a call for a crime in progress, a medical emergency or a fire.
“We would ask people to call our nonemergency number if you need to call in fireworks complaints,” Martin said.
As the calls start to roll in on the Fourth of July weekend, Anoka County’s 911 center is tapping into an artificial intelligence system to screen nonemergency calls to ease the workload and get to more calls.
The call will be transferred to the automated system to collect details before sending it back to the dispatcher to send to the appropriate agency.
“You can’t take the human out of 911, but if we are also going to be here, we need to be more available for the emergencies,” said Kari Morrissey with Anoka County Emergency Communications Center.
Morrissey says this new system is being rolled out this holiday weekend to test how well it works before the full rollout to use AI during major holidays.
“It’s going to save us, we think about two to three minutes per call, and will free up dispatchers to get to those priority calls,” Morrissey said.
Saving critical time, when every second counts.
In Minneapolis, residents can call 311 for noise complaints.
In Anoka County, the non-emergency number is 763-427-1212.
In Hennepin County, the non-emergency number is 952-258-5321.
