By Christian Boone
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — Atlanta’s 911 chief acknowledged Thursday that the operator who took the first call about last weekend’s Grant Park house fire could have done a better job verifying the actual location.
Residents got out safely, but the home burned for more than 20 minutes before firefighters arrived.
Atlanta’s 911 Communications Center officials initially blamed a wrong address for the delay.
The owner of the home and neighbors reported they had been put on hold when they called 911 and never reached emergency operators. However, tapes of the emergency calls that were released to the public showed some callers got through with the correct address.
“For us, this has been a learning experience,” said Miles Butler, director of the communications center.
As for the operator who took the call in question, “We’re going to do some retraining,” Butler said.
In the wake of complaints of long wait times when dialing 911, Butler said a new recording tells callers they will go to the end of the line if they hang up and call again.
“It’s really important to stay on the line and not hang up,” Butler said.
The first caller to reach 911 about the Grant Park house fire twice said it was on the corner of Atlanta Avenue and Grant Street, though he gave an address on Grant Street that was more than a mile away. As crews were dispatched there, Wilford Reed watched his home of 40 years burn.
Although it’s been confirmed that other witnesses reported the fire at 342 Atlanta Ave. within minutes of that first call, Butler said he does not know if any firefighters were dispatched directly to Reed’s home.
The incident is being used in a training class for would-be operators. “If there’s something that doesn’t correlate, continue to verify it,” Butler said. “Get that person to commit. You have to be thorough.”
Copyright 2009 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution