By Stephanie Innes

The Arizona Daily Star

Emergency call to 911 could end up with a busy signal

(the webmaster notes that is how the engineers who designed the system planned it as the article will show)

At the moment emergency strikes, the last thing you expect from calling 911 is a busy signal. But Tucson residents be warned: It can and does occur.

Its exactly what happened to 61-year-old David W. Hurley at 1 p.m. Sept. 22 when he spotted a four-car collision along Speedway near Craycroft Road.

He tried not once but three times to call 911.

Each time, Hurley said he heard a male voice on the other end saying, "All lines are busy. Please call back."

Hurley said he tried a fourth time several minutes later and got the same message.

"If I were having a heart attack or my house was on fire, I would be very irate to get that message. Very irate," Hurley said. "If someone had a real emergency,it's important that they aren't told, Sorry, call back later."

Telephone officials and an administrator for the city of Tucson's 911 operations acknowledge the problem, but they maintain the situation is not posing a public safety risk. They say a busy 911 fine merely means a logjam occurred because of repeat calls from the same area about one problem.

Hurley is unconvinced.

"It kind of tells me if you are placing your life in the hands of the government you are taking a chances," he said.

Busy signals can occur at one of three three points in the 911 process - at the 911 center itself; through U S West, which maintains the, lines; and through the cellular provider, said Anita Velasco, a city communications administrator.

"Cell phones, while wonderful, have created, especially with traffic accidents, a tremendous number of repeat calls," Velasco said. "A major incident on I-10 could receive up to 50 calls just letting us know traffic has stopped." Veasco said the busy signal Hurley received probably came from his cellular provider, AirTouch Cellular. But it's also possible for callers placing a 911 call from home to receive a busy signal, she acknowledged.

"It would be if something like a fire in the Catalina Mountains was happening, or something loud and visible like a very large fire, and several houses all around it called," she said.

Louise Rebholz, a U S West spokeswoman, said that if more than about 30 residential Phone lines in one area call 911 at the same time, U S West will put what is called a "choke" on the calls allowing only as many calls through as there are lines free.

The 911 center also "chokes" calls, Velasco said. The reason is to keep lines free for calls from other areas. "If I let all the calls come in on the multiple reports of shots fired, I could be blocking another incident coming in from another area," she said.

Velasco acknowledged the chokes could create a problem if another emergency popped up at the same time as the shots fired, and the whole area's 911 calls were blocked.

"It is a problem on how you balance. But if someone gets a busy signal, my advice is to hang ,up and call back," she said, stressling that most 911 calls are very brief and lines open up quickly.

She said it's rare for residential callers to get a 911 busy signal. "We've never had a 911 caller say they never got through and were unable to receive assistance," Velasco said.

The Pima County 911 system receives about 2,200 calls per day. Between 30 and 40 people work at the regional 911 center at any given time. A 911 excise tax on telephone users' bills, regulated by the Arizona Corporation Commission, requires that U S West allow no more than one busy signal for every 100 calls placed to 911 during the busiest hour, Velasco said.

Patti Finley, a spokeswoman for Seattle based AirTouch Cellular, said it's also unusual for cellular callers to hear a busy signal on an emergency call unless it's because of interference with the wireless signal, such as bad weather or a large building. "It's very rare. We have very low blockage rates," she said.

The recent tornado in Salt Lake City was one situation that created such mass panic that the. cellular system gave out busy signals, Finley said.

Finley said in an emergency situation where, for example, someone has a heart attack, the 911 line will almost certainly not be busy for cellular users because such an incident would not generate a high volume of calls.

I In other phone jams, I would' take a deep breath but know it's, probably busy because so many other people on the road have made the same call," she said.

Finley said the recording Hurley heard sounds more like a problem with the land phone lines.

"We would ask anyone to report any problems they encounter with 911. We really, want people to tell us about it and then we'll go back and research it the best we can," Velasco said. "We can have U S West go back and look at their records too."

Velasco said complaints about 911 in Tucson should be directed to the city's Communications Division at (520)791-3111.