How metro Atlanta’s 911 systems evolved after series of tragedies

Despite gains, the delays did not end in 2024. DeKalb County, for example, had a more tumultuous year in 2024 than it did the year before. But after a dismal spring, the county showed signs of improvement last fall, when its answer rates began to improve.

An AJC investigation last year examined data from millions of calls across metro Atlanta and found a high number of callers were left waiting for a 911 operator to answer. Reporters interviewed dozens of people who shared their harrowing stories of waiting on hold. They included a southwest Atlanta woman whose family had to navigate rush-hour traffic to get her to a hospital after a bullet sliced through her face and a young boy who waited for help as he drifted in and out of consciousness after crashing his scooter in Buckhead.

One year later, the AJC resurveyed seven of the core 911 metro agencies and found that while there are still lingering issues, many troubled agencies made significant advancements.

An expert in 911 systems said the better local answer times match nationwide trends. Call answer times are improving across the country as agencies lean on artificial intelligence to make their 911 systems more efficient, and as they add back staff that were lost during the pandemic, said Ty Wooten, director of government affairs for the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch.

“These are some pretty substantial increases,” Wooten said of the gains in metro Atlanta.

The improved answer times also come as state lawmakers are pushing for a multimillion-dollar overhaul of antiquated 911 systems in Georgia. A proposal moving through the state Legislature would provide incentives for call centers across Georgia to modernize and speed up 911 emergency systems. This could mark a turning point for areas that have failed to answer 911 calls in a timely manner.

In its survey of the seven 911 agencies, the AJC measured each agency against the industry standard: that 95% of calls are answered within 20 seconds. The AJC found:

Gwinnett’s 911 communications director attributes the county’s notable improvement to efforts to recruit, train and retain staff.

The news that Gwinnett had improved was particularly meaningful for Hall, who shared her 911 nightmare with the AJC last year. On Father’s Day of 2023, Hall couldn’t immediately reach an emergency operator when her husband went into cardiac arrest at their home in Loganville.

Hall did compressions on her husband as an automated recording told her not to hang up. That message continued on a loop for the next five minutes and 33 seconds, at which point she finally got through.

When EMS finally arrived at the Halls’ home, Lisa said they shocked Doug’s body and he still had electrical activity in his heart. He was taken in an ambulance and died shortly thereafter, Hall said.

Credit: Jenni Girtman

Credit: Jenni Girtman

Hall is grateful that telling her story focused attention on the 911 problem and may help friends and neighbors get a human on the line in a moment of crisis.

“The improvement is drastic, and it’s very much appreciated,” Hall said. “I’m of course devastated with what happened to Doug. But I’m glad that speaking up, and other people giving their very heart-wrenching stories, and scary stories, has made a difference.”

In Atlanta, the answer rate also steadily improved — 13 percentage points closer to the industry standard in 2024. The city’s 911 officials are hopeful they will improve the answer time to 95% of calls answered within 20 seconds by the end of this year.

Atlanta’s 911 center has increased pay as part of a citywide initiative and also added staff. The city also boosted pay for call-takers who work during peak times and retained workers by shifting from a five-day-a-week schedule to four days with longer daily shifts.

Another key change: Atlanta now has a system to help prioritize calls in order of urgency. During periods of high call volume, a 911 operator picks up a call as they normally would, but less time-sensitive calls are rerouted into a separate queue.

“[If someone] just got home from vacation, and they’ve been gone two weeks, and their window was busted in on their car, it’s important to us, but not nearly as important as cardiac arrest,” said Ryan Solis, deputy director at Atlanta’s E911 Communications Center.

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com

In DeKalb, the long wait times persisted. DeKalb’s 911 center had a lower average answer rate in 2024 than it did in 2023. The county’s performance hit a low last spring, cratering in April with only 35% of calls answered within the 20-second standard.

But by the fall, the center had been fully staffed and answer rates started to rise. In December, the county was answering nearly 64% of 911 calls within 20 seconds. Officials are optimistic they can continue to build on that momentum this year.

“I wasn’t aware of the full situation when I first came in,” said Carina Swain, DeKalb’s 911 director, who joined the agency in December 2023. “But I’ve been doing public safety for almost 17 years — so I’m up for the challenge.”

Sherri Chance experienced DeKalb’s problems in a very personal way last March. Chance and her sons dialed 911 after her house in Lithonia caught fire, and they heard the automated message telling them not to hang up.

One son waited for more than 20 minutes until a call taker answered, public records show.

Her two sons scrambled to try to save the home. She said they found a garden hose to douse the fire and enlisted the help of a FedEx driver who found two firefighters and alerted them to the blaze.

Credit: Sherri Chance

Credit: Sherri Chance

Chance said their quick-thinking prevented the house from burning down. But their struggles to reach an emergency operator had consequences, she said. The smoke damage to the home was so severe that Chance said she was forced to move out for five months.

As Chance reflects on the 911 delays that day, she is shaken by how much worse it could have been.

“If someone was having a heart attack, or a stroke, they don’t have ten to fifteen minutes to hold,” she said.

Records show that some of the people calling about the fire initially hung up. Swain, DeKalb’s director, said when callers hang up and call back multiple times it clogs the system and compounds the hold-time problem. She said callers should stay on the line, even when they can’t initially get through.

But Chance said people in crisis are just trying to get someone to help. The first thought when put on hold in that situation is to hang up and call back in the hopes that they can reach an operator, Chance said.

“You’re not thinking about how call center queues work, particularly if you’re on hold in the middle of a medical emergency or fire where time is of the essence,” Chance said.

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com

Since last spring, Swain has focused on filling vacancies quickly and bolstering staff. Swain said she anticipates the need to add more positions this year to keep up with the call volume coming into the center.

DeKalb has also increased use of its “nurse navigator” service, which moves lower-priority calls into a queue that’s answered by a professional nurse. The nurse can then give a caller medical advice, connect them to a doctor, or even set up transportation for an appointment. In 2024, DeKalb referred more than 11,000 people to this service.

The changes have yielded results, Swain said. The county has significantly reduced the number of abandoned calls. Officials expect a new phone system this summer will lead to more improvements.

Swain is hopeful the new system will leverage artificial intelligence to help sift through the surge of 911 calls that often follows a major incident, such as a shooting or a bad traffic accident. AI will be able to identify callers from the same vicinity to help emergency operators address calls more efficiently, she said.

“It’s not overnight,” she said of the 911 center’s progress. “It is something we are working on and are constantly looking at our internal processes.”

Lorraine Cochran-Johnson, DeKalb County’s new chief executive officer, said in a statement that the county is rolling out a campaign to promote its telehealth nurse service for the high number of non-urgent calls that can be handled by a medical professional.

“I am committed to providing the necessary support and resources to solving the issues that currently exist in 911,” Cochran-Johnson said in a statement.

The scrutiny though, is not over.

In February, DeKalb’s independent auditor wrote a letter indicating the office’s intent to conduct a performance audit of 911 call response times. That assessment is underway, according to the auditor’s office.

Beyond the technology fixes, DeKalb Commissioner Ted Terry said he and his fellow commissioners must be sure the county has every 911 call taker position it needs to answer emergency calls.

“I think that remains to be the number one goal,” he said. “We don’t want to leave people on hold. We don’t want people calling over and over again for minutes and minutes at a moment of true emergency.”

Our reporting

This report is a follow-up to an investigation The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published last year that found an alarmingly high number of callers in metro Atlanta had to wait longer than officials say they should for a 911 operator to answer. For the initial investigation, reporters obtained records on millions of calls in the metro area and interviewed dozens of people who shared their stories of getting placed on hold when they called 911 for help. They described feelings of fear, disbelief and a shattered trust of the emergency services system. In this follow-up to that investigation, reporters examined the progress some agencies made toward reaching the industry standard of answering the vast majority of calls within 20 seconds.