Baldwin County 911 Replaces Automated Dispatching With “Real” People

BALDWIN COUNTY, Ala.

OCTOBER 18, 2024

If you’re one of those who like to sit around and listen to the police scanner, you no doubt have heard plenty of calls being dispatched by “robots”.
Baldwin County 911 went to the automated dispatching program which uses computer-generated voices to verbally dispatch emergency calls over the two-way radio system last year.

The new system automates the entire alerting process and was implemented under previous leadership at the 911 center.

The hope at the time was that the calls would be dispatched at a certain volume, clearer, and would make communications between those in the field and the people sitting behind the microphones at the 911 center better, all the way around.

But for months now, there have been some calls that are generated by the computer that have sent emergency responders to the wrong address because it sounded like the name of one street, but the emergency was actually at a similar-sounding street.

So now, Baldwin County 911 has returned to having people communicate emergency locations to first responders.

Director Kristi Stamnes says “sometimes the system would mispronounce street names to first responders. You need to know exactly what is being said,” said Stamnes.

Stamnes who became the director in March, and says they’ll still use the system, just not the automated voice.
Dispatchers will once again communicate the location and type of emergency to the responders.

In a life-threatening emergency, seconds could literally be the difference between life and death.

Stamnes says before making the decision, she received feedback from first responders, and not a single police or fire department in the county she checked with liked the automated voice.

Last year, there were 151,979 calls to Baldwin County 911. This year, so far, there have been 107,496 calls.

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