Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Mon, 29 Apr 91 14:50:46 GMT From: roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: New Phone Numbers for NYC Fire Department Message-ID: Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 318, Message 11 of 11 Lines: 33 Ed_Greenberg@3mail.3com.com writes: > My GUESS (and it's only a guess) is that the 911 system in New York > City is so badly overloaded with police traffic that they have to > route fire traffic another way. Why not just add more operators, lines, etc? No, my guess is that it's political (what in New York isn't?). The NYPD and NYFD have a long standing tradition of feuding with each other. Various mayors have attempted, without much success, to mediate the disputes. NYPD claims they have jurisdiction over everthing that's not a fire, while the NYFD points out that since they have all sorts of fancy rescue gear, they should be the ones to cut people out of crushed cars, go scuba diving to get bodies out of the rivers, etc, etc. They also fight about which department is "in charge" of an emergency scene where officers from both departments have responded (have a Fire Marshal give orders to a policeman at a fire scene? About as likely has having American troops under Saudi commanders!) To bring this somewhat back to telecom issues, the radios they have are unable to communicate with each other. I believe the only way a policeman can get fire equipment to a scene is to call 911, and vice versa; this also extends, by-the-way, to the transit cops; they can't talk with the regular cops, and are also always having turf wars. Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy