Reverse 911 TTY Compatibility

In late March of 2004 we saw an article in the Union Tribune about a new emergency system the county would be installing in response to last fall's wildfires. It's called a reverse-911 system, because the emergency personnel contact you, rather than you contacting them. It's a computer-based system with a map interface which allows an operator to select an area of the county and have the computer call all the landline phones in that area and provide a recorded message. The intent is to use the system to contact businesses and residents in the event of an emergency such as a wildfire or a chemical spill.

We emailed several people at the county who were involved with the project, and got some responses that they would pass it on to others. The one substantive reply included the following paragraph:

"The telephone alert system that the County is in the process of procuring does not currently have text telephone/TTY capability. As you may recall from the newspaper coverage on this matter, this system will be used as a pilot or test program for 18 months. At the conclusion of the test, the concept of this system will be evaluated, and a decision will be made as to whether a telephone alert system will continue to be operated by the County. If the decision is made to continue the operation of such a system, staff will be instructed to research systems that include the TTY capability."

We replied to that email to express our disappointment with that decision and to point out that, because so much other emergency information is unavailable to people with hearing loss, they may be the MOST important people to include in a reverse-911 system. We also urged them to implement a system that is in compliance with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

As luck would have it, I later communicated (about a different matter) with another person from the county who was involved in this system, and I happened to mention my concerns about the lack of TTY compatibility for the reverse-911 system. She responded with some additional information and an offer to sit down and figure out how to make the system TTY compatible as soon as possible. We scheduled a meeting for July 7.

First Meeting

The July 7 Meeting was attended by representatives of the Sheriff's Department, the Office of Emergency Services, and Health and Human Services. We had an open and frank discussion about the reverse-911 system and how to include TTY users within the system.

The first piece of encouraging news is that the system they are testing IS TTY-compatible; no additional hardware or software will be required to be able to contact people on a TTY. What will be required is a list of TTY users with their addresses and phone numbers, and an easy method of digitally recording a TTY message for distribution.

Getting a list of TTY users is not as easy as it might seem. One source is the TDI "Blue Book", although only a small percentage of TTY users are included in that directory. Another idea is to contact Deaf Community Services and request their assistance. Perhaps a community education night about the new program would be useful to the hearing loss community, and also a good place to get a list of users. A final idea was to contact the local phone company and request their list of people who receive the TTY discount rates. We will probably pursue all these options to construct our TTY users' list.

The second immediate issue is developing an easy method of recording a TTY message to a digital file. I volunteered to work on this issue and report back in August.

We discussed some additional issues raised by the implementation of TTY capabilities. One concern is what happens when a telephone number that had been used by a TTY user gets reassigned to a person using a voice phone. It appears that we will be unable to get such notifications from the phone company, so we will have to construct a system that handles this situation on its own. The simplest system we came up with is to have all phones included in the voice list, whether they were known TTY users or not. The only downside here is that the TTY users will receive a voice message in the event of an emergency. But, if they are also on the TTY list, they will also get a TTY call!

There was also considerable discussion of other communications methods used by people with hearing loss (e.g. two way pagers) and the idea of extending the system to include those methods. The group decided to put those additional methods on hold for the time being, and focus on implementing the TTY list.

Project Goes on Hold

By mid-August we had come up with a pretty easy way to create a .wav file from a TTY message appropriate to broadcast over the reverse-911 system. So we notified the folks at the county that we were ready for our next meeting. Between vacations, reassignments, other priorities, etc., it took awhile to get back in touch - and when we did the news wasn't good.

It seems that the computer system that was being tested for the reverse-911 system wasn't capable of accommodating a population as large as San Diego County! So the folks at the County took a step back to determine their next move. It seems that they'll have to select a different system and start the process all over again. At least now we're ready with our .wav file to check TTY compatibility early!