Wired for Trouble

Football, they say, is a game of inches. By the same standard, life can be a game of minutes or seconds. A gunshot victim can be here one minute and gone the next. So, too, in a sudden house fire, a heart attack, an accidental poisoning, a crime in progress or any number of emergencies. California has an amazing variety of agencies available to help people in distress, but they are helpless to act if the call for assistance never gets through.

Today in California, however--anywhere in California--help is almost literally as close as the nearest telephone, and there are more than 21 million phones statewide. As of this month, every corner of California has access to emergency assistance through the uniform emergency telephone number 911. The first 911 system went into operation in Gustine in 1970. The last one was connected in Humboldt County in mid-December. Much of California is served by sophisticated equipment that automatically provides emergency center operators with both the address and telephone number of the calling party, even if the person is incapable of talking into the telephone.

The service is available on cellular phones in cars or boats (if a motorist spots an accident on the freeway, for instance) and through special phones for the deaf. Translators are available if the person calling for assistance cannot speak English. Twenty-three telephone companies and thousands of agencies and jurisdictions are involved.

The establishment of a statewide system was directed by the Legislature in 1973 with the passage of a bill sponsored by then-Assemblyman Charles Warren of Los Angeles and signed by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan--but not without some controversy over the amount of money involved. The $209-million construction cost, and ongoing operations expenses, are financed through a telephone surcharge that amounts to about 8 cents a month per residential customer. Connecticut is the only other state to have 911 service statewide.

No one knows how many lives have been saved already. But 911 has to be one of the most cost-effective programs ever implemented.