Feeling the Heat: The July 4th Strain on the JPS Community 

Law enforcement, fire, and emergency services agencies are in the middle of a spike in activity, due entirely to the Fourth of July holiday. 

A look at the statistics: 

• In 2023, 22 people were killed and 126 sustained injuries in 14 mass shootings over the July 4^th weekend 

• Between July 1 and July 5, 2021, gun violence contributed to 233 deaths and 618 injuries according to one study 

• The busiest days for injury-related ER visits all year are July 4^th – 5^th when U.S. emergency rooms experience more than 45,000 visits according to Pew Research Center 

• Fireworks aren’t the only injury-causing problem — other holiday activities like swimming or driving become increasingly dangerous when alcohol is involved 

These numbers are attention grabbing and for good reason — but it doesn’t even touch the number of calls that are placed to E911 call centers that are for nonemergency situations. 

Every second counts, and if your technology can’t carry its fair share of the load, disastrous outcomes can occur.  

Where Bottlenecks Occur 

Every call, whether it’s an emergency or not, deserves the utmost respect. That doesn’t, however, mean that you can rationalize bogging down your response times while every call is treated with the same priority.  

In this scenario, the same 60 seconds spent on one call about a noise complaint could be the difference between responding that much faster to a life-threatening accident or medical emergency. 

The Solution 

Despite the obvious difference in urgency to emergency and nonemergency situations, these are still incidents that one of your citizens have felt the need to call in for.  

With dispatchers and 911 operators in short supply, one way you can mitigate influxes in calls during peak periods (such as the July surge in emergencies) is by contracting with an E911 call center to triage calls as they enter the queue. By having an external call center filter incoming calls, your dispatchers can focus on deploying units to situations that require immediate reactions instead of wading through nonemergent scenarios. 

Ready to Transform Your Response Times? 

E911 centers aren’t the only technologies available to digitally transform response centers. To learn more about some of the other solutions available, Contact Us Today!