News briefs
November 1, 2005
What's the number for 911?
Until today, it was a valid question on the UW campus.
The on-campus emergency number switched from 9-911 to the more common 911 number. For anyone used to the old emergency number, 9-911 will still connect to the UW Police Department's (UWPD) dispatch.
It's a minor change, said UWPD Assistant Chief Ray Wittmier said, but was put in place to streamline the UW's emergency system.
"Everything's working the way it's supposed to," he said.
The change also brings consistency to the UW's emergency calls.
"You can dial 911 now like anywhere else in the county," Wittmier said.
That was the driving motivation behind the switch, since the new direct 911 calls will take only about half a second less time to reach dispatchers, he added.
The UW's phone system requires callers to dial 9 to reach numbers outside the UW switchboard. With the old emergency number, emergency calls were routed outside the university's internal system, then identified as calls originating from the campus and sent back to the UWPD dispatch.
Comments
Post a comment
You are not currently logged in. You must log in using your Facebook account to post a comment. It's fast, easy, and we don't store any of your personal information, except your first and last name when you post a comment.
Why?
Our old comment system was abused to leave racist, sexist, fradulent, or simply useless comments. We're hoping this verification step will improve the quality of our comments.
I don't have a Facebook account. I'd like to verify my identity using my MySpace/Google/Yahoo!/OpenID/SSN/주민등록번호/MasterCard.
Let us know. We're open to suggestions. Over the next few weeks, we'll be testing other authentication methods.
The FBI/CIA/TSA/CoS/Emmert is out to get me! I need to stay anonymous!
We're working on a way to allow this. If you have any ideas, email us.
I think this website is ugly.
It's going to be a work in progress all summer, so it may look and act differently from week to week. If you want to influence this process, email us. We read every email, and respond to most of them.