Callers don’t have the 411 on 911

Some people call their mothers when they need advice for how to prepare a holiday turkey. Others call 911.

“Thanksgiving we normally do get, ‘How do I cook my turkey?’ ” said Amber Schafer, operations manager for Kootenai County 911. “We tell them 1-800-Butterball is who they need to call.”

For a number that’s supposed to be strictly for emergencies, 911 gets dialed in a lot of situations that are neither life-threatening nor serious emergencies. The bogus 911 calls can tie up phone lines when people are trying to report real emergencies.

People call to ask how the roads are, to complain about their neighbor’s barking dog, or because they’re lonely and want someone to chat with.

“I had a lady call one year and ask what day she can water her lawn,” said Melissa Stoker, dispatch coordinator for Idaho State Police in the Idaho Panhandle.

Boundary County dispatchers recently got a call from a woman who was staying in a local motel and couldn’t get the room’s windows to lock. When she couldn’t rouse the front desk attendant, the guest dialed 911, Bonners Ferry police Sgt. Foster Mayo said.

Mayo said another example of 911 misuse is a call from a woman who wanted to know if she should cover her plants to protect them from freezing.

“A man called us yesterday to report his phone wasn’t working,” said Jeannie Alonzo, communications supervisor for Boundary County dispatch.

Alonzo also said a woman called earlier in the week to say she’d lost her cell phone in her car, and she wanted 911 to call her phone to help her find it.

Although both of Boundary County’s 911 lines aren’t often in use at the same time, Alonzo said, she’s concerned that there may come a point when someone with a real emergency can’t get through because of a call about an overflowing toilet.

“You know it’s 911, and you’re preparing for it mentally, and then you get someone saying there’s a turkey on their roof,” Alonzo said.

Stoker said ISP dispatchers in North Idaho handle about 70,000 emergency calls a year. If the nonemergency and nowhere-near-an-emergency calls were tallied, Stoker said, the total calls handled would near 200,000 to 300,000.

Sometimes people call 911 and admit it’s not an emergency, Schafer said. They say they just didn’t know whom else to call.

Many dial 911, instead of 411, for phone numbers. For ISP and Kootenai County 911, one of the most frequently requested numbers is for the jail, which is listed in the phonebook as the Kootenai County Public Safety Building.

“We don’t want to tell people they can’t call if they have an emergency,” Stoker said. “If it’s nonemergency-related, say, ‘What’s the phone number for the jail?’ that’s really not an emergency.”

For calls that aren’t emergencies, dispatchers advise people to call the nonemergency numbers for their local police and sheriff’s departments.

And for the turkey emergencies, Mom’s probably the best bet.