I'm Shocked That Deep Blue San Francisco Has a 911 Problem

Okay, so I'm not shocked. San Francisco’s 911 Response Times at a Low Point

San Francisco actually has two problems. The first is answering 911 calls.

According to the Department of Emergency Management, San Francisco's 911 call dispatchers answered just 72 percent of calls within 15 seconds in October, the latest month available. That's the lowest share of any month in the last six years, and well short of the department's goal to answer 95 percent of calls in 15 seconds or fewer.

Staffing is not up to the levels required, which is causing people to burn out, due to mandatory overtime. The bureaucratic hiring practice moves at a glacial pace, and so they can't hire people to cover retirement and people just quitting due to burn out. They did raise pay some, but there is no indication if that is enough. I guess only time will tell.

The second problem that San Francisco has, in relation to 911 calls, is getting officers to the scene of a "Priority A" incident.

The slowdown in responses has contributed to broader delays San Franciscans face when trying to get help during emergency situations. The city's typical response time to "Priority A" incidents — defined as the most urgent and serious events, like assaults-in-progress — is slower than it's been at any point in the last eight years, increasing from about 6.5 minutes in January 2016 to nearly nine minutes this November.

Now this is the media, so there is no mention of any "defund the police" initiatives in San Francisco over the past few years. I'm sure there were calls to do exactly that, but I'm not sure if anything was done. And this is a story about the 911 call center, so police are really mentioned only in passing.

I will just say that a lot of really bad things can happen in 9 minutes, and that assumes that you, or someone, can call 911 before bad things start happening. If your only plan is to "call 911 and wait to be rescued," you might want to consider having a "Plan B."