Fourth of July Non-Emergency Line Results

In order to prevent an influx of nuisance calls that could block emergency calls from reaching a call taker, Sedgwick County Emergency Communications activated a non-emergency line during the Fourth of July holiday.

Extra call takers were on hand for the emergency and non-emergency lines. Emergency Communications, which typically averages 1,400 911 calls a day, received the following number of calls over the holiday:

Nuisance complaints to the non-emergency line:

• July 3 – 96 calls
• July 4 – 359 calls
• July 5 – 266 calls

911 calls:

• July 3 – 2702 calls
• July 4 – 3053 calls
• July 5 – 2874 calls

“The goal of the non-emergency lines is to ease the burden on the emergency lines and ensure that they are available in case of an emergency,” said Kim Pennington, Sedgwick County Emergency Communications director. “This year we had no reports of citizens receiving a busy signal when calling in on the emergency lines. I would call that a success.”