Kayreen Lum, program manager from King County’s Enhanced 911 Program Office covered the basics of 911, from how and when to call 911 to what happens when they pick up on the other end at the SPD Southwest Precinct on Feb. 23.

Regarding when to call 911, Lum said it is imperative to make sure you are calling about an emergency or crime either in progress or impending. Examples of when not to call 911 included discovering a crime in the aftermath (noticing your car was prowled the night before or seeing new graffiti on a wall), power outages, traffic conditions and reporting stray animals to name a few.

Lum suggested visiting Links by Zip, entering your zip code and a list of non-emergency phone numbers for your area will populate the screen. It includes numbers for utility companies, non-emergency police and fire, road and traffic, health and human services and others. Lum suggested printing out the list so the numbers are available in case of a power outage.

Lum used Aug. 17, 2010 as an example of when not to call 911. Aug. 17 was the day Puget Sound was rocked by two loud sonic booms created by F-15 jets pursing a float plane flying in restricted airspace while President Obama was in Seattle, according to a Seattle Times story about the event.

As soon at the booms hit, Lum said King County 911 was overloaded with calls, mostly people calling to ask what the sound was. The danger of these calls, according to Lum, is they run the risk of tying up 911 operators so they cannot help people calling with real medical or crime emergencies.

Blockwatch captains asked Lum for clarification on when to call 911 when you see suspicious activity in your neighborhood.

“I think a good way to think about it is if crime is afoot it can be considered an emergency,” Community Police Team Officer Jonathan Kiehn, also in attendance, said. “Afoot means if a crime has just occurred, if it’s occurring right now or if you believe that it’s soon to be occurring. So if something is suspicious you have to be able to say, ‘I think that suspicious and it points to a specific crime.’”

For example, if someone saw a group of people walking down a dark residential street and checking car doors, that would be reasonable suspicion of car prowl or auto theft intentions to call 911.

Lum said the there are three major things to know before you call 911: the nature of the emergency, your location and name and phone number you can be reached at in case the call drops.

She said when stating the nature of an emergency, it is important to be concise and basic so they know whether the information needs to go to police, fire or both. Instead of going into full detail, she suggests just saying, “I am reporting a medical emergency” or “I am reporting a crime.” From that point Lum said it is possible you will be transferred to a different dispatcher with fire (calls always go to police first).

Operators will then ask for your location, and that information is aided by King County’s Enhanced 911 system that triangulates your general location if calling by cell and automatically brings up the home address if you call from a land line. She said computer-based phone calls, such as Skype, will tell operators the billing address associated with the account so be sure that address is current with your actual location.

If you are not certain of your location, Lum said to look for cross streets, building names and significant landmarks. If you are on a road, be sure to know which direction you are traveling.

Lum said the third critical piece of information is your contact information. Operators will want your name and phone number so they can call you back if the line disconnects and responding police or medics can contact you for more information at the scene.

After that information is gathered, operators will then ask for a longer descriptive narrative of the emergency, Lum said.

Behind the scenes, Lum said information travels quickly. Operators get your call and the information they gather is instantly forwarded to a dispatcher who then gives the information to police or fire responders over radio and via the computer.

Lum also shared statistics and facts about 911 calls in King County as well. She said there are 12 call centers in King County and the one you get is based on your location when you call and the 911 system is funded by a .95 cent charge to monthly phone bills.

King County, at last count, has a population around 1.9 million (582,000 of those are Seattle residents) and Lum said 911 received 1.75 million calls in 2010, with 66 percent of them coming from cell phones.

Call volume in 2010 was highest in the August and lowest in March and the two biggest spikes in call volume were August 17 (sonic booms) and Nov. 22 (the big snow storm). The highest volume for fire/medic response was July 8, the hottest day of the year in 2010.

Lum also talked about 911 and today’s technology. She said there have been test programs done on the ability to text 911 with information, but at this time the process takes much longer than a phone call and is not feasible. She also said although 911 programs may have social network pages, such as Facebook or Twitter, those pages should never be used to report an emergency as they are not checked regularly.

She also said to be weary of 911 aids marketed towards elderly people (such as Life Alert). Essentially, these gadgets call 911 at the push of a button, which Lum said can be good and bad. The good is the person can contact 911 at the push of the button even if they are away from a phone. The bad, she said, is that some of these gadgets don’t work very well (she did not cite any specific brands). For example, one gadget allows the 911 operator to hear the person on the other line, but the caller cannot hear 911 so they have no confirmation they are being heard.

To read even more about 911, check out the Herald story The things you must know when you call 911, published last year.

In other blockwatch news, Deb Greer reminded captains there will be a final blockwatch training with soon-retiring crime prevention coordinator Benjamin Kinlow (that story is here) on March 7th, 6 p.m., at the Southwest Precinct. People interested in attending should contact the blockwatch network, whose contact information is posted at the end of the story.

Blockwatch Captains have been working towards an online system for blockwatch members and police to better communicate and Deanie Schwarz said they met with non-profit organization Code for America and will hear back next month whether Code will accept their plan and help create it. According to their website, Code for America recruits “the brightest minds of the web to take on the core problems facing our community.”

WSBCN recently posted a short survey to help drive the network’s future and Karen Berge said although the deadline has passed, they encourage more people to take the survey.

The West Seattle Blockwatch Captains’ Network will likely have a new name in the near future, Greer said. They are taking steps to include all neighborhoods “from Alki to Roxbury and from the Duwamish to Puget Sound,” in the network and the “West Seattle” title is too specific.

Fore more information on the West Seattle Blockwatch Captains’ Network, visit http://wsblockwatchnet.wordpress.com, email wsblockwatchnet@gmail.com, call (206) 424-0040 and leave a message or visit their Facebook page here.