Troy Rotarians learned a few things about Pike County’s E911 Call Center this week.

E911 Communicator Elizabeth Agrella and E911 Shift Supervisor Kevi Johnson spoke with Rotarians about E911 operations in Pike County.

They were the guests of Beth Collier and Stephanie Baker. Bakerserves on the Troy City Council and participated in a new Citizens Police Academy pilot program being developed by Troy Police Chief Danny Barron.

Baker said one thing she took away from the Citizens Police Academy was to call 911. She said most people have been taught not to call 911 unless it’s an emergency, but that’s no longer the case. She said she invited Agrella and Johnson to the Rotary Club to help educate people about modern 911 systems.

“We get a lot of information from your phone,” Agrella said. “If you’ve put your medical information, your contacts into your phone, we get all that. We can get your location, your prior location history for your phone number. So, calling 911 gets us a whole lot more information.”

Agrella went on to say that even if you dialed the phone number for the Troy Police Department or any other agency, the phone call would be routed to the E911 Call Center. So, she said it was just better to call E911 first.

Pike County E911 is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week and handles dispatch duties for the Pike County Sheriff’s Office, Troy Police Department, Brundidge Police Department, Troy University Police Department, Troy Fire Department, eight volunteer fire departments and Haynes Ambulance Service.

Johnson said in addition to dispatch duties, the call center also handles all emergency calls as well as any non-emergency calls to supported agencies. During July to September – the last six months of 2024 – the call center handled 63,073 calls. There were 9,342 E911 calls, 53,500 non-emergency calls and 231 E911 texts.

Johnson said during the March 15 tornado, all E911 communicators were on duty and the center received 856 calls in a 24-hour span. She said 117 were emergency calls and the remaining 744 calls were non-emergency. On a normal day, the call center receives about 38 emergency calls and 99 non-emergency calls.