Richmond 911: Hey Chevron.

Chevron: Hello. We have a fire in process unit 4 crude.

Richmond 911: I don't know what that means but okay.

Chevron: We got a process unit [garbled] coming gate 31. It will be a first level response for you guys.

Richmond 911: Okay what does that mean? How many do you need?

Chevron: What, you guys got a . . .

Richmond 911: Like a single alarm? Like a good structure fire?

Chevron: Like whatever your structure is for us. I think it's like three engines and a truck.

Richmond 911: Okay

So let's pull this apart piece by piece, as I think you'll find some interesting parts to this that were not brought out in the new stories.

Richmond 911: Hey Chevron.

Chevron: Hello. We have a fire in process unit 4 crude.

This tells me a couple of things, first of all it appears that the dispatcher answered with "Hey Chevron." This would indicate that they had some type of a ANI/ALI pop on their screen, and they knew who was calling, and it almost appeared casual in nature, probably because calls from that facility were not uncommon. After all it's a large manufacturing facility that is well-known.

The caller from Chevron, calmly stated the problem, a fire, and the location, crude unit number four. Unfortunately this meant nothing whatsoever to the 911 call taker. This is the first incident where the press stated that the "dispatcher seems confused". The last time I checked, 911 call takers are paid to answer 911 calls. If you actually expect them to decipher what "crude unit number four" means from a location perspective, I think you need a little bit of a reality check. This is exactly what I was talking about in my podcast last month where I stated that cube 2C 231 means just about as much as "I'm wearing blue socks" to a 911 call taker.

With thousands of businesses in the community, and nothing more than a 10 digit phone number and street address on their screen, do we actually expect the 911 call takers to get out their crystal balls and start guessing at this stuff? I don't think so, and this is why enterprise businesses need to wrap process around their E 911 policies.

You can forget about location discovery, you can forget about on-site notification, you can forget about pager alerts to internal first responders. If you don't have a process in place, and well-defined, and most importantly, understandable emergency response locations, you can expect the exact same response that dispatcher gave to Chevron.

Richmond 911: I don't know what that means but okay.

While some choose to chastise this dispatcher, and label her as "confused", I , on the other hand, commend them. They stayed calm, they got the information they needed, and dispose of that call in less than 24 seconds. In my book, that's pretty damn good.

If you never thought that location discovery within an enterprise or commercial facility was critical? I ask you to think about how poorly this could've gone if it hadn't been for the calm professionalism at the 911 center.

This is an excellent lesson as he teaches us that not only technology is needed to correct the problem of appropriate reporting from MLTS systems, but the vetting of procedures and zone naming conventions with public safety so that both sides are speaking the same language and can communicate effectively.

Fortunately, there were only minor injuries in this particular incident, but remember, it hasn't always been this way.

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