Selects: 911 Is Not a Joke

Summary

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Stuff You Should Know: "Selects: 911 Is Not a Joke" (June 6, 2026)

Main Theme and Purpose

In this episode, hosts Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant take a deep dive into the history, functioning, social implications, and modernization efforts surrounding the 911 emergency phone system in the United States. With their trademark banter and chuckle-worthy asides, Josh and Chuck demystify what happens when you call 911—when you should (and shouldn’t) call, how the technology actually works, its slow evolution, and some of the social challenges such as misuse, racial bias, and the stress faced by dispatchers. The episode aims to inform listeners about 911’s past, present, and (technological) future.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Why 911 Is an Interesting Topic

• Josh reflects on his initial skepticism: talking about 911 would be boring. He quickly realizes the opposite: "That’s what makes 911 kind of fascinating—it seems boring, but it’s actually deeply interesting, and really important." (03:20)
• 911’s familiarity: Many younger listeners may assume it’s always been around, but it’s a relatively recent invention in the context of modern American history.

The Origins and Rollout of 911

• UK led the way with 999, launched in 1937 after a deadly fire, influencing the U.S. to consider a similar system. (21:41)
• The U.S. began with a fire-only focus in the late 1950s, but it expanded to all emergencies through advocacy from the National Academy of Sciences and a presidential commission. (23:44)
• The first-ever 911 call was not made in a major city as one might expect, but Haleyville, Alabama, in February 1968, as a publicity stunt. (26:06)
• Each 911 system is local or, at best, regional—meaning the rollout was uneven and based on community resources. (27:55)
• The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation granted rural communities funds to establish their own systems, critical for non-urban regions. (30:59)
• Surprising stat: 911 did not become the official nationwide number until 1999. (32:03)

When You Should and Should Not Call 911

• Legitimate reasons: Fire/smoke, medical emergencies, major car accidents, crimes in progress, imminent violence. (07:31)
• Not for: Animal issues (unless attacking), lost pets, noisy neighbors, power outages (call your power company), and "cat stuck in a tree" scenarios. (09:01)
• The "suspicious person" gray area: The danger of racial bias and over-reporting—“People aren’t suspicious, behavior is suspicious.” — Dave Ruse, via Josh (11:37)
• Litmus test: Would I call if the person was of a different race? If the answer is no, maybe don’t call. (12:09)
• Law enforcement’s official line is “call us if concerned,” but this can have tragic results if not balanced with thoughtful consideration. (13:07)

How the System Actually Works (Tech and Processes)

• Original system: Phone lines (landlines) routed 911 calls to Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs), often within local fire or police stations. (36:05)
• Enhanced 911 (E911): Introduced automatic number and location identification, a leap forward for quick response. (37:24)
• Cell phones complicated the process: 80% of current calls come via wireless, but location is less precise and relies on cell tower triangulation and, later, GPS coordinates (not always accurate). (40:41)
• Operators must often coax location details from panicked callers. Even as of the date of original recording, the system still can’t always pinpoint your exact location. (45:33)
• Technological lag: “911 is hopelessly antiquated. They’re working on improving it, but, it still, generally, works.” — Josh (06:17)
• Payment: The 911 system is funded by a tiny surcharge on all phone bills (landline and cell). (54:13)

Prank Calls, Misuse, & Swatting

• It's a crime to make joke or “swatting” calls to 911, where someone fakes a violent emergency to send armed police to a location. These have sometimes led to deaths. (18:33–19:45)
• If you call 911 by accident, DO NOT hang up—stay on the line and clarify the mistake, or the system will attempt to re-contact or dispatch authorities for a welfare check. (20:25)

Modernization: “Next Generation 911”

• Next Generation 911 (NG911) aims to move the system from analog landlines to digital technologies—enabling text, photo, and video messages, as well as hyper-accurate location info (“what floor you’re on in a building”). (47:52–49:02)
• Upcoming: A dedicated wireless broadband (“FirstNet”) for first responders, so emergency technologies won’t be crippled in disasters when networks are overloaded. (49:14)
• Text-to-911 has been gradually rolling out, but isn’t available everywhere; FCC requires bounce-back messages if a text can’t go through. (47:37, 58:00)
• Old inactive cell phones can still call 911 if charged, with or without a plan. (58:15)

The Hidden Burden on 911 Dispatchers

• Operators are highly trained, the true “first” first responders: “They're literally the first and most important first thing that happens in an emergency.” — Chuck (49:46)
• Often no closure: Dispatchers may never find out the outcome of a crisis call, can experience PTSD, stress, and high turnover. (53:31)
• Only bad dispatchers make headlines; the vast majority are unsung heroes.

Racial Bias, Social Dynamics, and 911

• African American communities often face slower response times and a greater likelihood of having innocent actions reported as “suspicious.” (54:43–55:31)
• ACLU study revealed: “African American neighborhood on the South Side [of Chicago] waited 11 minutes for a cop… 2.5 minutes for the predominantly white neighborhood.” — Chuck (54:43)

Common Myths and Urban Legends

• “Order a pizza” code for undercover emergencies supposedly alerts dispatchers—debunked, not standard practice. (56:30)
• In the UK: If you call 999 and stay silent, a set of prompts can help confirm if you’re in danger (by pressing ‘5-5’). (56:42)
• Texting to 911 can be critical for situations where talking isn’t safe or possible (domestic violence, kidnapping, hearing-impaired users). (57:34)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On misuse and bias:
  “People aren’t suspicious, behavior is suspicious.” — (Josh, 11:37, quoting Dave Ruse)
• The impact of cell phones:
  “911 is hopelessly antiquated… But it still generally works.” — Josh (06:17)
• On dispatcher burnout:
  “If you’re a 911 operator, you probably have been on the phone with somebody when they took their last breath, when they were murdered, when they died very, very scared. That kind of stuff takes its toll.” — Josh (53:23)
• On service equality:
  “Four and a half times slower… that’s just a pure tragedy.” — Chuck, referencing ACLU investigation (54:43)
• On 911 system upgrades:
  “911 will be using a secure Internet connection in the near future… and when they get to that point, they will be able to accept video, photos…” — Josh (48:05)
• PSA on accidental calls:
  “If you ever call 911 accidentally… do not hang up. Stay on the phone and be like, I’m really sorry, this is an accidental call.” — Josh (20:25)
• The simple philosophy:
  “If you can’t get an ambulance to that person, they’re going to croak. But if you get the ambulance to them… you don’t need band aids when you’re dead.” — Josh (31:14)
• On calling for actual emergencies:
  “Child, Your parents have just taken out a substantial life insurance policy on you.” — Josh (05:09)
• Cultural touchstone:
  “Of course, if you were a fan of Public Enemy, you remember the great song, ‘911 Is a Joke.’” — Chuck (54:33)
• Humanity in action:
  “I think Kurt Vonnegut said there’s no greater display of humanity than seeing a fire truck go down the street with its sirens blazing.” — Josh (58:36)

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Segment Timestamps (Key Topics)

• [03:20] — Why 911 seems boring but isn’t
• [04:22–05:14] — Personal recollections before 911 was common
• [07:31–13:59] — What’s a real emergency? Social consequences of over-calling and racial bias
• [18:33–19:45] — Swatting and misuse of 911
• [20:25] — How to handle accidental 911 calls
• [21:41–23:44] — Origin of emergency numbers (UK’s 999, U.S. system birth)
• [26:06–32:14] — History of 911 rollout (first call, funding, national adoption)
• [36:05–40:50] — Basic workings of 911, from landline to enhanced (ANI/ALI) and mobile challenges
• [45:05–47:52] — Current limitations and recent FCC rules for cell location
• [47:52–49:14] — Next Generation 911 and FirstNet for first responders
• [49:46–54:01] — Dispatcher reality: stress, burnout, and unheralded labor
• [54:33–55:31] — Racial disparity statistics
• [56:30–57:50] — Pizza-ordering urban legend, UK silent call prompts, and texting safety net
• [58:15–58:32] — Any charged phone can dial 911, even without service

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Overall Flow & Tone

Josh and Chuck’s conversation is candid, often playful, but always respectful to the seriousness of emergency services. They relish in trivia, historical oddities, and the ways technology and culture intersect, but balance the humor with sobering discussion of social consequences and the human cost behind the scenes. The episode is peppered with personal stories and references to pop culture (“Drunk History,” "Public Enemy," Halle Berry’s "The Call") to keep listeners engaged. They stress practical takeaways and foster both appreciation for the system and thoughtful critique.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode of Stuff You Should Know demystifies the often-overlooked but vital 911 system—its origins, current challenges, and the bigger social forces at play. Whether it’s reminding listeners to use it wisely, explaining why dispatch tech lags behind cell phones, or spotlighting the psychological toll on call-takers, Josh and Chuck offer the listener a well-rounded, practical, and sometimes poignant understanding of why “911 is not a joke.”

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Transcript

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Learn [e-mail] hey everybody, Chuck here on

[Chuck Bryant]

your Saturday selects and hey guys, you

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know what I'm going to do?

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm going to take us on a little walk down Memory Lane from 2020 and my picks for the next generation. Geez, maybe up to 20 weeks for me and then Josh picks his maybe 40 weeks. Almost a year are going to be walking back through the year of COVID Kind of what was going on thematically that year and before and after and we'll see if there's there's any fruit to bear. As far as looking back, I hope

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this is more interesting than your usual

[Chuck Bryant]

select, but we're going to start it off with February 13, 2020 pre Covid by about a month. Ish with our episode 911 is not a joke all about 911 and how it works. Great episode. Check it out.

[Podcast Announcer]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartradio.

[Josh Clark]

Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant over there. There's guest producer Josh T. Rocking it out. And this is stuff you should know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Take to a dish.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. One of the rare second takes.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. We lost a whole 14 seconds of try number one.

[Josh Clark]

Right. It wasn't any good anyway. That's what it was. Josh turned into like Elvis Castell was like, no, no, stop, stop.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, wow, look at that reference. Little SNL callback.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it was nice. So, as you can tell, Chuck, I'm pretty excited about this episode, which is kind of surprising because talking about 911 seems like it might be the most boring thing we could talk about.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, you think?

[Josh Clark]

Untrue.

[Chuck Bryant]

What with all the people dying and.

[Josh Clark]

Well, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Cats stuck in trees.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

What else? I should name everything you shouldn't call 911 for.

[Josh Clark]

Let's see. Neighbors playing his music too loud. That's one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Exactly.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. There's a bunch of stuff you shouldn't call 911 for, which we'll talk about.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

But one thing, like, I am familiar with 911. I remember growing up as a child in the 80s, and I was like. I remember hearing about this new system that was coming around when I was growing up in Toledo, and I was like, that doesn't make any sense. Because 911, it turns out, has been around at least since 1968 in the US it's been around way longer in parts of the US in UK. Yeah, true. But I like to think of Toledo as kind of a happening spot.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

Toledo didn't get a fully functional 911 system until 1989.

[Chuck Bryant]

Did you look it up?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So you guys resorted to the previous method, which was run down the street screaming for neighbors, just swinging a cat by its tail. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

That was your siren.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I seem to remember. I don't know exactly when we got it, but I think I remember it happening because if I remember correctly, when I was a kid, we had one of those little cards next to the kitchen phone that had police, fire and whatever else. So that had to have been pre911 or else we wouldn't have had that dumb thing. Right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

That would just confuse the children.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Call these numbers first and then if they don't answer, call 911.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Then do the super easy thing that will route it to the correct person.

[Josh Clark]

Child, Your parents have just taken out a substantial life insurance policy on you.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. For.

[Josh Clark]

That's a long game. Right there it is. So Chuck, as new as 911 is, even though it seems old. Right. Especially for younger listeners, I would guess that it seems pretty.

[Chuck Bryant]

They probably think it's been around since,

[Josh Clark]

you know, horse and buggy days.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Since rotary phone days. Yeah. Right. So as old as it is or as new as it is, it's gotten pretty robust. Very robust.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Every year. These are some stats that our buddy, Dave Ruse helped U.S. compile. 240 million calls in the U.S. that is 650,000 calls a day.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. That's like 900,000 calls a minute.

[Ray Porter]

No.

[Josh Clark]

Are you sure? I just did that. Back of the armor.

[Chuck Bryant]

You made me double take that.

[Andrew Moyes]

I noticed.

[Chuck Bryant]

And another important thing here is that 80% of calls these days are from your wireless phone.

[Josh Clark]

That's a big deal.

[Chuck Bryant]

It is. Which we'll get to. But that changed things.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The big spoiler is that the 911 system that we currently use in the United States is hopelessly antiquated and they're working on improving it. And nothing that we should say about how antiquated it is should keep you from calling 911. It still generally works, but it's having trouble or it's had trouble traditionally keeping pace with the massive sweeping changes in telecommunications that has gone on in the last couple decades.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because telecom is always trying to move forward and they don't think like, but maybe we should slow the pace for 911.

[Josh Clark]

Right, exactly. And plus, I mean, 911, we'll see. Those systems are built alongside the other system, so when the other system leaps forward, they have to go through and rebuild this system that's just for 911.

[Chuck Bryant]

Because you can't get rid of an old system because people. Well, we'll get to that stuff.

[Josh Clark]

We'll get to that. Let's not spoil it.

[Chuck Bryant]

But we were laughing earlier about things that you should and should not call for. Some of these are debatable, I think. Oh, yeah, I think so.

[Josh Clark]

Says who?

[Chuck Bryant]

Says me. Okay, we'll get to the last one. Really is the only one that's debatable. But obviously, if there's a fire or smoke that you think is a fire,

[Josh Clark]

where there's smoke, there's fire.

[Chuck Bryant]

Medical emergency. And you can't, you know, obviously get in an ambulance or get in a. Get in your car and run someone to the emergency room if you can. If it's quicker and you can do

[Josh Clark]

so safely, it's quicker and cheaper.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, well, sure.

[Josh Clark]

Cost of gas, maybe a couple tolls. Who knows? Compared to, like, an ambulance ride, no

[Chuck Bryant]

That's a, that's a good point. But I mean I imagine if your home just loaded and your kid gets hurt, you should probably call 911.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Call 911.

[Chuck Bryant]

Car accidents, of course, if they are major enough and like have injuries.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Call 911.

[Josh Clark]

You should be able to tell like if somebody's like oh, that kind of hurt my neck. You don't have to call 911.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

You could call. Here's the other thing. If we're saying don't call 911, that doesn't mean like don't alert anybody.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

But there's a. Your police have their own phone number. Your local police have their own phone number. They do up and call that. The non emergency number.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. And then obviously the last category is some sort of crime being committed, violence being committed.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Call 911.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. So that's like no one's gonna argue with that.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think so.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. There are plenty of instances where you shouldn't call 911 and yet people reliably call 911 for stuff like this.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I think that's because it's been drilled into everyone's head. It's kind of a double edged sword. You can't drill that into everyone's head. 911-911. All you gotta do is call 911 and then not expect to get some cat stuck in the tree calls.

[Josh Clark]

You keep going back to that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, we actually did that when I was a kid.

[Josh Clark]

Did you, you called 911 for that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, you know the funny story, it's not very funny to my dad, but we had a cat stuck in a tree.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

My dad went up and he got stuck in the tree.

[Josh Clark]

He just climbed up too high. Yeah. And he got freaked out.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think so.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean I was a kid, so you know, they weren't saying your father's very afraid and has screwed up. I was just a kid. Kinda like, well now dad's up there and now there's firemen here helping my dad out of a tree.

[Josh Clark]

Cats and dads get stuck in trees.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And looking back, I think that's totally probably what happened.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think he got way up there, was freaked out.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cute.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'll have to ask him about that one day.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, so your dad's stuck in a tree. I would say that's call 911 situation. Cat's stuck in a tree. Now unless you live in pleasantville, don't call 911 for that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's true.

[Josh Clark]

If you have a question about the speeding ticket you got the other day, that's not a call that you would place through 911. Again, you can just call. There's even a number on the back of the ticket. Don't be dumb. Okay. Hey, bringing that back just for that second.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

What else, Chuck?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, of course. Anything dealing with your animals. Unless. Well, I'm not even gonna say that. I was gonna say if there's an animal attacking someone.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, you would call 911.

[Chuck Bryant]

Call 911 for that, come out and shoot this dog, basically.

[Josh Clark]

It could be rabid.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's terrible.

[Josh Clark]

Call, hectate out.

[Chuck Bryant]

But otherwise, if the cat in the tree. Lost animals, injured animals, noisy neighbors. I love that Dave puts power outage in here. And in parentheses, call your power company.

[Josh Clark]

Right. It's.

[Chuck Bryant]

That last one, I think, is a little. It kind of opens a can of worms. And that is the suspicious person thing. Because, you know, they say to call for suspicious activity, which theoretically is a suspicious person. I think the distinction is. And what we see. And we'll get into this later, racial biases. You know, people in neighborhoods calling the cops on someone because they're black and walking down my street.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which happens.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

That is not a suspicious person, even. I mean, if there's nothing going on. I know people try to justify it, but then local police say, you know, hey, always call us if you think something might be going on. Right. And that's where it gets dodgy. Because that comes down to a human being's perception, which can be very tilted,

[Josh Clark]

as Dave puts it. He put it a couple ways that I thought were pretty smart. He said, people aren't suspicious. Behavior is suspicious.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And they say specifically to call 91 for suspicious activities. But again, these are people. So it's just such a weird fine line you're walking there.

[Josh Clark]

The other little litmus test that I've seen is stop just for a second, because this is suspicious behavior. You see somebody, like, breaking into a car, like, assaulting somebody. That's beyond suspicious. That's like the act.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's the act. That's a crime being committed.

[Josh Clark]

So you have a second when you see a suspicious person to stop and think, like, would I call 911 if this person were white? Or if you're a black person doing this, say, would I call 911 if this person were black? And if the answer's no, then maybe you shouldn't call. Maybe they're not acting that suspiciously.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It's just interesting. On these Facebook neighborhood pages, it's kind of evenly divided between people saying, don't call 911 for this. This is just a guy going door to door, perhaps.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Other people saying, no, you know, what if it's 9:45 or 10:00 clock at night and someone's knocking on your door in our neighborhood, that seems, like, suspicious. Maybe you should call the cops and let them work it out. And for the cops, they say, you know, call us. That doesn't mean we're going to dispatch eight cars to your home, but we might work you through the situation and it's all gonna be fine. Yes, but this is the only one where I thought was a little bit like, you shouldn't just say, like, don't call 911 when you see a suspicious person.

[Josh Clark]

No, you certainly shouldn't say that. At the same time, though, I think one of the big hesitations for calling 911 these days is like either the increase or the increase in reporting of people, innocent people who had 911 called on them being killed by the cops.

[Chuck Bryant]

Exactly.

[Josh Clark]

And that death would not have happened, their death wouldn't have happened had the person been suspicious of them and called 911. And the fact when news of something like that gets out, it will make you second guess that kind of thing for sure. It makes you realize you were bringing people who are armed and jumpy out to a situation where it's just somebody walking around or whatever. And when you look at it from that respect, it can make you second guess the whole thing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And things can look. It can look like potential malfeasance. That's not, you know, like a lot of people, you see a lot of people saying, well, I think someone's casing my house because a car pulled into my driveway and sat there for two minutes.

[Josh Clark]

They asked me if I wanted to know more about Sierra Club or someone

[Chuck Bryant]

stopped and was taking pictures of my house. Like, you never know, somebody might be taking picture of the oak tree that they're trying to learn about or just looking up something on their phone and standing in the direction of your house.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Nine times out of ten, they're trying to figure out more about the oak tree near your house.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I'm trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, you know.

[Josh Clark]

No, I'm with you.

[Chuck Bryant]

Anyway, it's just that's where it gets a little dodgy, for sure. And we'll have statistics, statistics later on about actual racial bias, because it's real.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, moving on.

[Josh Clark]

You want to Take a little break after that. Seems like a good spot.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I think I do.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. Well, everybody, we're taking a rare Josh break and we'll be right back.

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Josh Clark]

You should know. Okay, we're back. That Josh break was invigorating.

[Chuck Bryant]

I wasn't doing anything. I was just taking a picture of your oak tree. Will you get off my back?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, my gosh.

[Chuck Bryant]

What kind of oak is that?

[Josh Clark]

Sir, there's only one kind of oak. No, I know. There's a bunch of different oaks. Everyone in Ireland's like, no, that's not true.

[Chuck Bryant]

While we're mentioning calling 911, though, you can get arrested. It is a crime to prank call 911.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. You don't want to do that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or to swat. It's called swatting.

[Josh Clark]

That's a bit. I think that deserves its own podcast.

[Chuck Bryant]

Maybe because there was some. Some guy got killed. Right, From a swatting incident.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I think it's happened more than once.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. That's serious stuff.

[Josh Clark]

If you don't know what swatting is, we'll just give you the 4. 11 on this abuse of 91 1. Man, I love myself sometimes. That's great. So swatting is where you are a hacker. Right. And you can disguise the number that you're calling from to make it look like you're calling from a house that you want the cops to go to.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And you basically say, like, I'm in this house and I'm holding hostages and what are you gonna do about it? Johnny Law.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And the law comes out. And usually swat. I shouldn't say usually. In some cases, the SWAT team will actually enter this house where people who have no idea what's going on are. And maybe the people who have been swatted said something mean to the guy who called the SWAT team out on them. But it's basically. It's not like saying, like, there's a. I think there's a hostage situation in this house. It's. I'm the guy holding the hostages, and here's where I am.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know what I mean? Like, and SWAT teams stink, Right?

[Josh Clark]

Exactly.

[Chuck Bryant]

So the SWAT team's like, we're gonna go kill that guy.

[Josh Clark]

I'll bet you would never in a million years bring your SWAT team out.

[Chuck Bryant]

And whatever you do, don't come in guns blazing. Right. Which we're joking about. Something that's really happened.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. So I really think we need to talk at least a short stuff, I think. So we'll look into it a little further.

[Chuck Bryant]

We'll do one on swatting and one on doxxing.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

The two weird new things that people do now.

[Josh Clark]

Right. But swatting is definitely a crime.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. Also so that you don't make 911 feel like. I think this is great. This is almost like a public service announcement that we're in the midst of.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. We do these.

[Josh Clark]

So. So you don't get in trouble with the 911. So they don't think that you're pranking them when you're not. If you ever call 911 accidentally or say your kid does or whatever, you do not want to hang up the phone.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I did that a few years ago. I feel like I accidentally called 911 because I think cell phones have a feature that enacted like an automatic call by accident. Right. And I saw it and I went, oh, crap. And I hung up and I got a call back, like, in a second.

[Josh Clark]

That's great. Ideally you should.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Yumi has a great story from when she was a kid. She got scared. I can't remember. Something about her grandmother who was perfectly fine, but she called 911 and got scared when 911 answered and hung up. And they kept calling back and she kept hanging up.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's very cute. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

They came out to the house.

[Chuck Bryant]

A little welfare check.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, basically. But you don't want to do that. Don't follow the Yumi model of 911. Like, just stay on the phone and be like, I'm really sorry. This is an accidental call. And I'm definitely not the bad guy pretending that this is an accidental call. Make sure you say that too.

[Chuck Bryant]

My name is Timmy. I'm five. It's all good.

[Josh Clark]

My name is little boy with brown hair.

[Chuck Bryant]

So I think the history is fairly interesting because England started 9. Not 91 1, but their version, which is 999, way back in 1937 in London. I didn't know this I didn't know it either, but they were the first city in the world that created the three digit model. Apparently, as the story goes, there was a fire in downtown London and people tried to get through the fire department and they were put on hold and switched around and so they said the town crier came out and said 999 is the answer.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Which. So 999, it's easy to remember.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

I guess no one else was using 999 at the time. But this is back in the day of rotary phones, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So that's actually it was a Burden to dial 999 with a rotary dial. Should have been for sure. I just thought that was kind of clumsy of them, a little bit clumsy of the Brits.

[Chuck Bryant]

But let me see here. I think it was a 12 mile radius around London at first, after World War II and went wider and because, you know, Britain liked to do a little world conquering, you can find 999 in cities all over the world.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Where London has or where England has left their imprint.

[Josh Clark]

That's a way to put it for sure. Yeah. And the U.S. of course, said, well, we're not going to let the Brits outdo us. You're going to do Brexit, hold my beer.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, we're going to wait 20 something years and do it ourselves.

[Josh Clark]

Right, exactly. So I think in 1957, the fire chiefs association, sorry, the national association of Fire Chiefs, I was way off. They said, hey, we should come up with an easy to remember three digit number for people to report fires. And other people said, hey, that's a great idea, we'll do that to report emergencies. And the Fire Chiefs association said, no, just fires.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, right.

[Josh Clark]

Luckily no one listened to them. Well, they didn't listen to the just fire part.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

And then a couple years after that, or maybe a few years later, the National Academy of Sciences said, this is actually a really good idea. We should do this for calling ambulances too. And then finally a presidential commission on law enforcement and the Administration of Justice said, no, all emergencies should have a three digit, easy to remember number.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. So the FCC says, who should we get in touch with here? How about at&t? Because these were the days of phone monopolies, Right. Or phone monopoly. It was just one, right?

[Josh Clark]

No, I think.

[Chuck Bryant]

When did they break up the phone companies?

[Josh Clark]

I think it was before this.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Because they broke them up into the different bells, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Were all the different bells part of one big phone Company.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. The Liberty Bell.

[Josh Clark]

Which one? I just said two different things.

[Chuck Bryant]

The Liberty Bell. The Southern Bell.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Bell from Pacific Bell. Pacific Bell. The bell from Beauty and the Beast.

[Andrew Moyes]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

All the bells.

[Josh Clark]

Albuquerque Bell.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure, why not? You can ring my bell.

[Josh Clark]

That's a good one.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's a good song.

[Josh Clark]

It's a good one. But I think More, more, More by Andrea True Connection is far better.

[Chuck Bryant]

What's that?

[Josh Clark]

Virtually the same thing, but just a better, better song.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay. They got in touch with AT&T and they said, can you help us out with this? Apparently @&t is the one that chose 911 because it hadn't been used yet, which is kind of the first stumbling block.

[Josh Clark]

Again, the rotary dial.

[Chuck Bryant]

Rotary dial. That was. 911's a lot better than 999 way.

[Josh Clark]

It's 2/3 better.

[Chuck Bryant]

It is two thirds better. And it was easy to remember. And I think they had set up at this already 411 in a lot of areas. So they just kind of extended that idea of the something 11.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So the first. This really surprised me. The first 911 call that was ever placed in the United States.

[Chuck Bryant]

New York City.

[Josh Clark]

You would think so.

[Chuck Bryant]

Washington, D.C. no. Chicago.

[Josh Clark]

What else you got?

[Chuck Bryant]

Chicago.

[Josh Clark]

You already said that one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay. I don't know.

[Josh Clark]

What about Los Angeles?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, why not?

[Josh Clark]

What about Albuquerque?

[Chuck Bryant]

They're doing fine.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. No, none of those are correct. Haleyville, Alabama was the site of the very first 911 call.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's a good little trivia question. I think that is

[Josh Clark]

pedal to the metal,

[Chuck Bryant]

by the way. I recently watched. I had recorded all those Jeopardy Shows with Ken Jennings on there.

[Josh Clark]

The.

[Chuck Bryant]

The Champions run. That was some of the better TV I'd seen in a while. Really good stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I mean, if you're a Jeopardy. Fan, it was as good as it gets. Like the smartest competitors and like, big time drama. Cause they, you know, they had to bring it on those daily doubles. It wasn't like a regular show. Like, they were daily doubling on like $20,000 and stuff.

[Andrew Moyes]

Ooh.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like, it was really tense.

[Josh Clark]

Wow.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like, good drama.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So cool. Because I think Ken knew that other guy, the Holz Helitzer guy was a gambler and he made his name for really just going all in. And Ken knew this, so he had to do the same.

[Josh Clark]

Well, sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

In order to beat these chumps.

[Josh Clark]

If you're playing a gambler, you get dragged into gambling whether you want to gamble or not.

[Chuck Bryant]

You get in there, you know, it's Good stuff. Anyway, good trivia question. It's probably been on Jeopardy. Haleyville, Alabama, did. It was kind of a publicity stunt. It sounds like they.

[Josh Clark]

So the little. The little phone company there, the Alabama Telephony company, basically said, that's pretty funny. AT&T is about to do this. They're about to launch this 911 system. We want to jump on it and adopt it first. So we're going to set this up as fast as we can, because here's the thing. We'll find out more about this in a minute. But there's no national 911 system. Everywhere in the United States, 911 reaches an emergency dispatcher or an emergency operator. But each system is local, regional at best.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

So Haleyville, Alabama, could jump on this and set up their own system and get started. And that's exactly what they did.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. February of 1968. They had a state senator named Rankin feit. He dialed 911 as a. You know, obviously this is like a photo op or video op. In other words, there wasn't an emergency.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's like, man, what a coincidence that the state senator had the first emergency

[Josh Clark]

and happened to be standing next to the special phone.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. They had a special bat phone, a red phone. And I think an Alabama congressman was on the other end at the police station.

[Josh Clark]

Congressman Tom Bevel, known as the Pork King.

[Chuck Bryant]

Really?

[Josh Clark]

Not just the Alabama Pork King, the Pork King of Congress.

[Chuck Bryant]

And the state senator said, what are you. Pork King. What are you doing at the police station? I've got an emergency. And he said, are we really gonna do this bit?

[Josh Clark]

I would force whoever's on the other line to do it.

[Chuck Bryant]

So, yeah, it was all just a big show to say, hey, we did it first. They did it a week later. They still have a big festival every year, too. Sure, a 911 festival.

[Josh Clark]

I wonder if they reenact this famous phone call.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man. If we could play those two parts,

[Josh Clark]

I'm the Pork King.

[Chuck Bryant]

How great would that be? Forget drunk history. Just put us up there.

[Josh Clark]

That's cool.

[Chuck Bryant]

And when I say forget drunk history, I mean we very much want to be on it.

[Josh Clark]

Are we still pursuing that?

[Chuck Bryant]

No. I mean, just by occasionally yelling out of my window every now and then.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, why not us? The crickets are deafening.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm surprised no one said, like, hey, this is a natural fit. These guys are great storytellers about history. They can get drunk with the best of them.

[Josh Clark]

We've been saying this for years. No one's changing. No one's listening.

[Chuck Bryant]

So Nome, Alaska, about a week later, did the same thing. And we're the second city. And then throughout the 70s and 80s, it kind of started rolling out. But it takes a while to get this kind of thing going.

[Josh Clark]

It does, because, again, it's a local, again, at best, regional system. Okay. And your local city might not have the money to put in a new telecommunications system system to be used for emergency services. And at first, you know, cities that were a little more flush with cash because they had a larger tax base, had the money to roll these out. So, as expected, aside from Haleyville and Nome, it was mostly like large metropolitan areas that were starting to roll out the earliest 911 systems. But the Robert Wood Johnson foundation, which was the foundation based on Johnson and Johnson's company, they took an early interest in this and started handing out grants to rural areas to set up their own 911 systems. So ironically, Haleyville, Alabama, had it not jumped on it, probably still wouldn't have a 911 system were it not for the Robert Wood Johnson foundation doling out grants to, like, you know, small towns around the country for their own.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because they were like, you know, what people called 911. They go to the hospital. We're using Johnson and Johnson products.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yep.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm not being overly cynical. I'm sure that, you know, 911 is probably good for the band aid business.

[Josh Clark]

I would guess so.

[Chuck Bryant]

And baby shampoo.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because if you can't get. If you can't get an ambulance to that person, they're going to croak. But if you get the ambulance to them. Right. You don't need band aids when you're dead.

[Chuck Bryant]

Nope.

[Josh Clark]

That's just like a fact of death. But if you survive, you're going to need a lot of band aids, depending on what you've done to yourself.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. Here's some stats for you. By 1976, when I was 5 years old, only 17% of the U.S. had 911.

[Josh Clark]

You want to know a surprising fact? 1976, I was just born.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, you probably weren't covered by 911.

[Josh Clark]

Again, not until 1989.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, by 1987, only 50% of the country, which is. That's kind of. That's pretty late. I would have thought we would have had a lot more of the country cover by then, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

You would think so. And it wasn't until 99, actually, Chuck, that 911 officially became the emergency number for everywhere in America.

[Chuck Bryant]

1999, Bill Clinton said, let's do this. He said, what about 999? And they went, bill.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, please.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wrong country, Canada. Speaking of wrong countries, they are very much the right country because they got on board with 911 as well.

[Josh Clark]

That's absolutely true, Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Because they were like, why make things too difficult?

[Josh Clark]

You know, that's a great question, Canada. And I think the answer to that is you shouldn't make things too difficult. Just kind of go with the flow, go with the break.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or should we do some more stuff here?

[Josh Clark]

I was thinking maybe another break.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Are you okay with that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

Are you sure?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

What about you listeners? Okay, good. Well, we'll be right back.

[Chuck Bryant]

Stuff you should know.

[Kal Penn]

Hey, everyone, it's Kal Penn. I'm the host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook project Hail Mary, Massive sci fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you wake up alone, very far from Earth.

[Ray Porter]

I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections. And it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, no. At this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. But there's places in this book that that deeply, emotionally affected me. And I left it on the mic. That's great because it served the story. People will say like, oh my God, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah, dude, me too.

[Kal Penn]

Listen to Hearsay, the Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Josh Clark]

Okay, Chuck, let's talk about how it actually works.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. In the early days, obviously, it was all landline telephones. So when your call got routed to the switchboard, which was a 911 switchboard dedicated to that, they would pat you across phone lines that were dedicated to 911 to what's called a PSAP, a public safety answering point. And at the time, they were a lot of times, like, in the fire department or in the police station.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So they could just turn in their chair and be like, sarge, dispatch some people to this address.

[Chuck Bryant]

We got a suspicious person staring at oak trees. Right again, Right.

[Josh Clark]

And today, a 911 dispatcher is a highly trained, highly skilled person. There's a lot of stuff going on. It's like a flight attendant. Remember when we learned, like, flight attendants are actually trained to save your life in an emergency, and they just hand out peanuts as like, a side thing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

This is basically the same thing with the 911 operator call Taker. They know how to do a lot of stuff, but the earliest ones just knew how to answer the phone, take down your info, and then turn around and send it off to the fire department or the police department or the paramedics or something like that. They'd be like, okay, I gotta go. All right, I'll see you. Bye.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And then they would get off the

[Chuck Bryant]

phone, and that evolved to the call center. That evolved to what was called Enhanced911, which was in the 1970s, again, driven by telecom, advancing with AT&T. With new technologies, they developed ANI and ALI, automatic number identification and location identification.

[Josh Clark]

ANI is just caller ID. That's what everybody calls caller ID. Yeah. Remember those cute little boxes that you can plug your phone line into, sat on your little table, show you in some little terrible readout.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Basically dot matrix readout.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yep. Who was calling? Pretty neat. And then it was on your handheld cordless phone.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

You could look at it and that was like, whoa, we're living in the future, Rich. Or the answering machine now is digital. We don't need those tiny tapes.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's true.

[Chuck Bryant]

That was like a big revolution too.

[Josh Clark]

That was huge. Amazing, because you could leave as long a message as you wanted now.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But you couldn't get that clever. Nobody's home. Nobody's home.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure. You're still recording your outgoing message.

[Josh Clark]

Right. You could sing it. But they actually had that tape you could buy that you could put in. Yeah. There was one that was like a

[Chuck Bryant]

whole mixtape of them of just like gag answers. Oh, boy.

[Josh Clark]

You don't remember that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Not really.

[Josh Clark]

There was a very famous ad that ran.

[Chuck Bryant]

Really?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was like delight your friends basically.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow. Yeah, that's pretty funny.

[Josh Clark]

So this enhanced 911 system, the automatic number and the automatic locator, that was a big deal because now all of a sudden, if you were a call taker for 911 and a call came up on your little computer screen, it said what the number was and what the address was. And because everybody was calling from landlines, you knew exactly where that person was who needed help.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

Saved a bunch of time. It was a very huge life saving measure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, when you think about people in an emergency could be everything from crippling fear keeping you from even knowing where you are to having been hit on the head and not being able to say where you are.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Or you just can't speak.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And so that really. Imagine that they spend a lot of time sometimes just trying to get through that first step of where are you? Right.

[Josh Clark]

So this was an enormous leap forward. And in the 70s and 80s it really kind of cemented how helpful and life savings this 911 system could be. And then cell phones came along and the rest of us kind of leapfrogged right over 911 because the cell phone carriers didn't have Ani and Ali. When you call 911 still to this day from a cell phone, it does not come up what your number is or where you are in any specific way. And so Congress, or at least the fcc, said, hey, we need you guys to do something. Like there's gotta be something. It just can't be like you Know you have no idea where this person is in the country. Yeah, because part of the other thing about the automatic locator that they had originally with 911 in the 70s and 80s is it would route you to the closest public safety answering point.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

So that would be saving time too, because the person you're talking to is in the same area as you and knows the area you're talking about and can more quickly dispatch people.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

With cell phones, it's not the case.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, and Dave makes a good point. Even if they could have located, like, where your cell phone plan was or your phone was activated, you don't have to live in the city where that is.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

You can have friends that have LA numbers that work in the film industry here. Just because that stupid LA310 or 323 makes them look like a more legitimate hire.

[Josh Clark]

Just so cool.

[Chuck Bryant]

So cool and so dumb.

[Josh Clark]

Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

But, yeah, they would be like, you're in Atlanta. It says you're in Los Angeles.

[Josh Clark]

Is this a prank? Are you swatting me? Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So the FCC said, okay, you guys need to do something. So what they did was they came up with a triangulation where the closest cell phone tower's address comes up when you call.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's a good start.

[Josh Clark]

It is a good start. But if you're out in the sticks, the closest cell phone tower might be miles and miles and miles away. That's true. And even if it's not miles away, let's say it's a football field away. Well, if you're in a dense, densely

[Chuck Bryant]

populated area and you're bleeding out, that doesn't help.

[Josh Clark]

It does not help at all. But it gets you a little bit closer and it helps to transfer your call or to route your call to the closest psap.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. And then the other thing that they have them do now, phase two of this enhanced wireless, enhanced 911, is it gives your GPS coordinates.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Which is so 90s, it's ridiculous.

[Chuck Bryant]

It is.

[Josh Clark]

It's like MapQuest.

[Chuck Bryant]

Anyone who's ever waited on a ride share that thought you were down the street from where you were, knows how accurate that GPS can be.

[Josh Clark]

It's still great, but that's way more accurate than what 911's working with.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, they're just working with longitude and latitude points, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. One of the biggest qualities a quality to have as a 911 operator is to be able to quickly translate longitude and latitude coordinates, GPS coordinates, into, like, Google Maps, to get an address really

[Chuck Bryant]

fast into smooth Sexy voice?

[Josh Clark]

Sure. Like Barry White with fingers of fury.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or like Halle Berry, Barry White's fingers. Did you see that movie, the Call?

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

She played a 911 call call specialist in a movie, a thriller. It was good.

[Josh Clark]

Was.

[Chuck Bryant]

It wasn't great? Yeah, it was good.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Brad Anderson directed it. He's like a really quality director.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I know that name.

[Chuck Bryant]

And it seemed like this sort of. From what?

[Josh Clark]

You gonna call me out on that?

[Chuck Bryant]

I didn't hear you. From what?

[Josh Clark]

From where?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I don't get what you mean from where.

[Josh Clark]

Like, what other.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, what other movies has he directed? Yeah, he directed a scary movie called Session 9.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yes. Okay. Well, then this guy's one of my favorites of all time.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know that movie?

[Josh Clark]

It's one of the best horror movies ever made.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I'm a fan of Brad Anderson because he has a range of genres. Like one of his early movies is this kind of spacey rom com called Happy Accidents. That was great.

[Josh Clark]

Happy Accidents.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, really good. With Marisa Tomei and Vincent d', Onofrio, but it had this. It was a rom com with a sort of a. A bit of a sci fi twist to it.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

And he did Trans Siberian. He's done. He did Next Stop. Wonderland was one of his first little indies. But, yeah, he does. It's unusual for a director to tackle all these weird or different genres, Disparate genres.

[Josh Clark]

Well, you had me at Session Nine.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. The Call is a good popcorn movie. I highly recommend it.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, I'll check it out.

[Chuck Bryant]

Halle Berry's a call center person and that's all I'll say.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, she's quality. She's a quality actress.

[Chuck Bryant]

She is.

[Josh Clark]

But the fact that I had never even heard of this movie really made me suspicious.

[Chuck Bryant]

It did pretty well. Okay, it wasn't a massive hit, but it did like 60 million bucks.

[Josh Clark]

But that's really surprising. Like, I'm very aware of movies. Like, I'll know what the movie's about and I've never seen it. Not even seen a preview. I'll just kind of know. Sure. So I'm surprised.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

I recommend it.

[Josh Clark]

I'll check it out.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, it's no Black Coat's Daughter, but that's a good one, too. So where are we now? We are now at texting to 911.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, wait, hold on. I wanted to drive this home real quick.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Drive it home.

[Josh Clark]

The 1996 FCC rule that says you have to have a cell phone tower tell 911 its address. The closest one to your cell phone and then give the GPS coordinates for wherever that cell phone they think the cell phone is. That's the 911 system that's in place nationwide today in 2020.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's why they ask you from a cell phone.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Who are you and where are you? Just like they did in the early days.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And this is a problem because, like you said earlier, 80% of 911 calls in the United States are made from cell phones. And 911 does not know where you are unless you tell them.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. But it's also balanced out by the fact that

[Josh Clark]

they really want to help.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, you have that cell phone right there immediately, so.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Remember the old days, you're like, let me find a payphone. Let me go knock on someone's door.

[Josh Clark]

That's true.

[Chuck Bryant]

And be. And ask about their oak tree, and hopefully I won't get shot. So people are calling right away. So I would think that kind of counterbalances the clumsiness.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Of location.

[Josh Clark]

I think you're right, Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

We'll see.

[Josh Clark]

Boy, you really swooped in there.

[Chuck Bryant]

I say we'll see as if there's some report coming out.

[Josh Clark]

The thing is, though, is people have figured out, the people, the powers that be, who are concerned with 911 and its system well aware of this major flaw. And our work have figured out how to update it. It's just now we're in the process of rolling out updates.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, and then privacy advocates are going to be like, what? You're going to, like, locate every single person with the cell phone and know where they are at all times? Right.

[Josh Clark]

And Amazon and Apple are like, dude, we already know that. It's just 911 is the only one who doesn't know where you are at all times, which is a problem. It's funny, I saw a wired article from 1998 that was, like, wringing its hands, like, oh. You know. Privacy advocates are worried that they may be able to track the movement of cell phone users based on this information that 911 gets. Adorable. Yeah. They're like, maybe. I don't know.

[Chuck Bryant]

We'll have to see what the future holds. So texting to 911 is the latest technology. About 10 years ago, 11 years ago, in Iowa and Blackhawk, they were the first jurisdiction to offer this service. And it's still kind of coming out. I think a couple of Years ago, all 50 states had text capability, but

[Josh Clark]

it's not everywhere in each state.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, exactly. It's just text. I love. Dave points out you can't send emojis, I can need help emoji, but you can't send text and video. And that kind of thing would be super helpful, I think.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So this is where we are in the next generation. It's literally called next generation 911 NG911. And it's where 911 finally catches up to every other telecom company and device manufacturer already is. And it basically uses all the information from the Internet of things that lets people know exactly where you are, not just like what your address is, what floor of a building you happen to be sitting on right now. All of that information is now going to be funneled to 911 when you call. Because 911 is finally abandoning landlines. Landline telecom. That's what they're dealing with currently. They're going over to VoIP. So 911 will be using a secure Internet connection in the near future. And when they get to that point, they will be able to accept video photos like this is the guy that's attacking the lady, hurry up, that kind of thing. And then they'll also be able to because they're setting up a separate wireless broadband network just for first responders called FirstNet.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's going to be a big deal.

[Josh Clark]

And so 911 will be able to say, hey, here's a photo of the guy that you're looking for. They can't do that. Now, as mind boggling as it is, they cannot do that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, just to have a dedicated wireless network cuts down on, I imagine, interference and potential hacking.

[Josh Clark]

Plus in a disaster, if you're out there in the field, you are using your own wireless device that's on the public broadband right now. And so if the public broadband goes down because there's so many people trying to use it to find out what's going on in like an earthquake or something, like the first responders suffer from that too. So this separate broadband network just for first responders won't crash in the event of a disaster.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, and speaking of first responders, I think it's kind of time we join certain people and saying call center employees are first responders, are people saying they're not? Well, I don't think they're generally thought of as first responders if you work at a call center because they just sit around maybe, but they are literally the first and most important first thing that happens in an emergency. And like you said earlier, they are trained to and walk people through cpr, Heimlich, how to deliver a baby how to handle an active shooter, suicide, domestic abuse. If you're a kid and you're scared because grandma fell over, like, how to handle children. Like, they're really skilled. And I think it's a shame that, like, I feel like the only time you hear about 911 call center responders is when there's a bad one and you release those calls and everyone's horrified. And it is. It's awful. But those are clearly, like, the standouts, I guess. Not standouts. The standouts are all the good employees.

[Josh Clark]

There have been some doozies, for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I read about one where somebody called in a wildfire in Oregon. Oregon. Sorry. Oregon. Oregon. And the 911 operator said, what you're seeing is probably just the play of light on sunlight on the fog.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

It was like, how would you even know that you're in a call center? I'm looking right at this thing. It's a wildfire. And they didn't dispatch anybody. And like, a half hour or 20 minutes later, somebody else called it in. And by this time, it was, like, raging.

[Chuck Bryant]

There was the one lady drowning in her car, too. That one was horrific.

[Josh Clark]

I didn't hear about that one.

[Chuck Bryant]

She was in her car that was going down, and I think. I don't remember exactly what happened, but she was freaking out. And I think the 911 person was just sort of dismissive, and it was really kind of rude, even. But, you know, that makes the news, not the 650,000 calls a day that go through and our lives are saved.

[Josh Clark]

No, no, absolutely. That's absolutely true. It's a great point. There are plenty of stories, though, people of them just straight up doing hero stuff, going above and beyond.

[Chuck Bryant]

You should see Halle Berry in this movie.

[Josh Clark]

One of the things that can happen is as much as you're trained to not let it happen, you can become emotionally invested in a call.

[Chuck Bryant]

Totally.

[Josh Clark]

And I've read that some operators are just fine at leaving it at the door, at least appearing to leave it at the door. But others can suffer burnout, ptsd. And one of the big things that I saw that's a huge psychological problem for 911 operators is that there can very frequently be no resolution. They can be on the phone with somebody who is, like, holding someone hostage, and they're trying to talk them down, and all of a sudden the cops come in and the line goes dead. If they're not good friends with the cops who came in, they may never find out what happened. Like, no idea. They're talking someone through who's been shot or whatever to try to keep them alive and conscious. They have no idea what happened to that person. They have to take the next call. And that's a huge problem. There's no closure. And then sometimes there is closure. Like if you're a 911 operator, you probably have been on the phone with somebody when they took their last breath, when they were murdered, when they died. Very, very scared. That kind of stuff takes its toll on people and it can be a big problem. And there can be pret frequent turnover among 911 dispatchers.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's a Halle Berry movie.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm telling you, it's all there. Yeah. Cause even if they don't get closure on the work site, they could see it on the news that night. Be like, man, I took that call of this murder or whatever, pretty bad.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Not a job for me.

[Josh Clark]

I don't think I could hack it either. And then practically speaking, there's like, you have to be able to type really, really fast with a high level of accuracy while somebody's telling other information.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I would like you might be taking info in and you have to be chatting with a cop on IM who you're sending out while you're also taking the description from the other person. You're just going back and forth.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. You got to be able to compartmentalize and multitask. None of those things are my specialty. If you're wondering, you pay for 911 if you have a phone bill, cell phone bills included. That's a little surcharge there.

[Josh Clark]

That's outrageous.

[Chuck Bryant]

Just scream socialism, everybody.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And as far as those statistics we talked about earlier about the racial bias, of course, if you were a fan of Public Enemy, you remember the great, great song, 911 is a joke.

[Josh Clark]

It was a good one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Flavor Flav.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

There was a study done by the ACLU in 2013. Residents of Grand Crossing, this is Chicago study. African American neighborhood on the south side waited 11 minutes for a cop to come after a priority call. Two and a half minutes for the predominantly white neighborhood of Jefferson Park. And response times in that were four and a half times slower in the black community. And there's, you know, like I mentioned earlier with the people calling 911 on, you know, just an African American person living their life. There have been cases where people ended up dead because of that after escalation. And that's just like a pure tragedy.

[Josh Clark]

For sure there is. Like when you have something this massive and huge and it Involves people at, like, their worst moment of their life. A lot of stuff is going to kind of come out of it. There's a lot to 91 1. A lot of legends and myths and everything. But one of the things I saw that everyone seems to know about is that if you call 911 and pretend you're ordering a pizza, they will understand that you are in a position where you can't talk, and they'll dispatch the police. Supposedly, that's a myth, but it makes total sense. Doesn't you've heard that before?

[Chuck Bryant]

I was just thinking of Die Hard.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I don't remember that.

[Chuck Bryant]

There was that line where he's calling the 911 dispatcher. Well, I guess I don't even think it was. I think it was an actual copy on the other end. And she's like, calm down, sir. And, you know, it's not an emergency, whatever. And he said, what do you think I'm doing? Ordering a pizza.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, that's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that might have been a reference to that.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe. So.

[Chuck Bryant]

So what are you saying again?

[Josh Clark]

The urban legend is that if you, like, let's say there's somebody who's, like, got a gun on you, if you can somehow get it to the point where you're like, hey, let's order a pizza right now. You call 911 and say, hey, I'd like to order a pizza.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that's code for here's my address. And then.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, and that 911 will get what's going on and send the cops out. Apparently, that's not true. But there was an urban legend I saw in the UK with 999 that if you call and you don't say anything, they will send someone out. And I think that is kind of widely believed over here in the US Too. But apparently in the UK that is true. But it's going to send you through a series of prompts if you don't respond. And if you press 5 5, you will be confirming that, yes, there is an emergency and you just can't talk right now. And they will send people out. If you don't press 5 5, then they won't. It'll just take it as like a accidental call.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, and that's the big benefit. I don't even think we kind of brought up about texting to 911 because you might think, like, ugh, because people want to text millennials. But there are plenty of cases where you can't talk, you're maybe in a domestic dispute.

[Josh Clark]

Or if you're hearing impaired and you're

[Chuck Bryant]

hiding in a closet, or if you're hearing impaired, or if you've been kidnapped and don't want to use your voice out loud, or you're a scared child. Like, plenty of great cases to be made for texting.

[Josh Clark]

And since text to 911 isn't everywhere, the FCC has a law that if your telecom carrier doesn't. Doesn't have text to 911, they have an immediate bounce back that says, like, you can't do that. You have to call 911.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Which is. That's pretty valuable.

[Josh Clark]

It is. And one last thing. If you find an old phone that has a charge in it, even if it hasn't had service for 20 years, you can dial 911. You will be connected.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that is pretty cool.

[Josh Clark]

Every single phone that is in operation dials 911 for free.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I like that.

[Josh Clark]

I do too, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

I love 911.

[Josh Clark]

I think Kurt Vonnegut said there's no greater display of humanity than seeing a fire truck go down the street with its sirens blazing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, really?

[Josh Clark]

That sounds like something he'd say.

[Chuck Bryant]

Interesting.

[Josh Clark]

Well, if you want to know more about Kurt Vonnegut, you can just type that into the search bar. How stuff works and who knows what that'll bring up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Who knows?

[Josh Clark]

And since I said that, it's time for a listener may have.

[Chuck Bryant]

This is a response. When we asked for examples of racism in today's military and we heard from a range of people, I have to say, from this guy who.

[Josh Clark]

To the other guy.

[Chuck Bryant]

To the other guy, this guy said, I'll just tell you what this guy said in a minute. But other people have said that, yeah, they've seen some pretty bad racist stuff in the military, but they're isolated incidences just like in the real world.

[Josh Clark]

Gotcha.

[Chuck Bryant]

But this is what Matthew Applewhite says. Start off, I'm a white guy. I can't speak on everyone's experience while in the service. But during my four years, I saw more camaraderie between a mix of races than I ever see in my real life.

[Josh Clark]

It seems like this is the response that we got the most.

[Chuck Bryant]

The most. I think you're right. They thought us. Oh, they taught us from the start in boot camp, Marine Corps, that you're all nothing and you will all become Marines. And with that in common, it gives the common ground between any race or nationality. They might often refer to African American Marines as dark green, implying, yes, they may have a different skin tone, but they're still green. And over the years, in and out of training, you learn that everyone endures the suck and the hard times together and no one is above another. In the end, you learn to trust the man to my left and right with my life, no matter what his skin color. And ladies too. They're female Marines.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. I'm glad you said that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Now saying all this, some some prejudice from other people's upbringing do still remain, but most of the time it is shot down very fast with harsh repercussions and it is kept to a minimum. I made many friends from all walks of life that I would have never even imagined being so close to without the common ground we stood on or the hard times that we endured together. And that is from an avid listener named Matthew Applewhite.

[Josh Clark]

Thanks a lot Matthew. We appreciate you letting us know. Thanks to everybody who wrote in to let us know. Virtually the same thing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, except for the couple of standouts.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Well, if you want to get in touch with us like Matthew did, you can go on to stuffyouchouknow.com and I think our social links are there. Who knows. But you can always get in touch with us via [e-mail]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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