Atlanta's 911 operating system gets upgrade; Video messages, live streaming soon

ATLANTA - Atlanta city officials are excited to unveil their new 911 operating system. They say contacting emergency services will be a new, more efficient experience.

Emergency Center Director Desiree Arnold says gone are the days of manually routing lines. As a result of a series of new developments, the city’s 911 operating system has started working more like a cell phone. Soon, you'll be able to send texts, photos, videos and even live streams of your emergency.

"That makes a big difference," Arnold says.

Back in Nov. 2021, a water leak that led to electrical failures in Atlanta's 911 center caused outages and serious delays. It was a wake-up call for officials to get things running in better shape.

(FOX 5 Atlanta)

"In the event that we had to evacuate the center, we would now be able to transfer our calls in three to five minutes, versus 40 minutes to an hour," she says.

The new Emergency Services IP Network (ESI Net) allows 911 operators to track a callers' exact location, instead of having to call a cell phone tower for more information.

(FOX 5 Atlanta)

That development alone has dramatically shortened response times — something Mayor Andre Dickens touted in his ‘State of the City’ address.

"While we are down to 11 [seconds]. We’d like it to be zero, and we need public’s help with that," Arnold says.

The director reminds viewers to only call 911 in cases of emergencies, that will help bring their response times down closer to their goal. The non-emergency line is 404-658-6666.