Public Advocate Bill de Blasio joined Council Member Elizabeth Crowley in calling for a serious and candid review of the 9-1-1 system’s failure to keep up with call volume during Hurricane Sandy. In a letter to the Mayor, the Public Advocate and Crowley, who chairs the City Council’s Fire and Criminal Justice Committee, disagreed with the Mayor’s assertion that the system “functioned perfectly,” citing its failure to manage fewer than half the calls for which it was designed. They urged the Mayor to sufficiently plan for spikes in call traffic during emergencies.
Read the full letter below:
November 20, 2012
Hon. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
City Hall
New York, NY 10007
Dear Mayor Bloomberg,
We are writing to express deep disagreement with your recent comments that the City’s 9-1-1 system “functioned perfectly” during Hurricane Sandy and in its immediate aftermath. During the crisis, many callers experienced hold times of over an hour. Some gave up on 9-1-1 altogether, instead calling elected officials’ offices regarding evacuations and other life-threatening emergencies. This is not the mark of a perfectly-run system.
The City has asserted the current technology is capable of handling 50,000 calls per hour, and yet operators on hand were overwhelmed by the 20,000 hourly calls made during the storm’s peak. This is unacceptable. The failure to resource 9-1-1 with adequate personnel to manage incoming calls is inexcusable. We had many days to prepare for Hurricane Sandy—every effort should have been taken to anticipate call volume. The failure to do so put the health and safety of New Yorkers at unnecessary risk.
Complacency will not help us prepare for future disasters. New York City spent $2 billion to develop a 9-1-1 system that could handle twice the number of calls that came in during Hurricane Sandy. But a failure to plan caused the system to fail, just as it failed during the December 2010 blizzard. The City must seriously analyze the system’s shortcomings and seek answers that will help us better prepare for future disasters.
Sincerely,
Bill de Blasio
Public Advocate for the City Of New York
Elizabeth S. Crowley
Council Member, Chair of the Fire and Criminal Justice Committee