Audio clip
Jim Wigley
By Lauren Gregory, Staff Writer
In a time when some feel wireless phones are poised to render land lines obsolete, local officials say emergency call boxes still provide a measure of safety in parking lots and along walking trails and roads.
“We’re really happy we have them,” said Tennessee Riverpark superintendent Jim Wigley of the 10 radio-operated boxes stationed every mile along the Riverwalk.
He said call boxes have been around since the park opened in 1989, though a newer, more reliable system was installed in 2005 and hooked directly to the Hamilton County 911 Center’s radio system.
“We may have 1,000 bogus calls, but if there’s one call that saves someone’s life, it’s worth it,” Mr. Wigley said.
Many of the calls are false alarms, according to Lee Watkins, telecommunications consultant for the Hamilton County 911 Center. Though 911 officials do not track the frequency or types of calls coming from the boxes, they can recall several prank calls and even an instance when a woman mistook a call box for a source of historical information.
“She was really shocked,” Mr. Watkins said. “She expected a recording about her surroundings or something.”
Mr. Wigley said it is not unusual to receive one or two calls from the boxes a day. A button on the box immediately connects to an emergency dispatcher. The caller’s exact GPS coordinates are available instantly, giving the call box an edge over the sometimes unreliable locator technology on wireless phones, he said.
Hamilton County park rangers are dispatched to check out each call to find out whether it is legitimate, Chief Ranger Fred Fuson said.
“That’s the ranger’s job, to be out there checking things out,” he said. “There are rangers here 24/7.”
Kevin Brady, Chattanooga’s parks and facilities maintenance director, said he can see the reasoning behind having call boxes along the Riverwalk, which has “long expanses where you’re out there by yourself.” But the city’s parks tend to be more densely populated and therefore don’t require them, he said.
“We’ve got park rangers, and everybody’s got cell phones,” Mr. Brady said.
Wireless phones — along with traffic camera monitoring and patrolling help trucks — also have negated a need for the call boxes along state highways, said Jennifer Osborne-Flynn, regional community relations officer for the Tennessee Department of Transportation.
“There are so many people with cell phones, it’s like they have their own portable call boxes,” Ms. Osborne-Flynn said.
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga police Sgt. Paul Dodds said UTC’s estimated 70 call boxes are not used as often as they once were, but they are needed nonetheless.
“Cell phones have definitely changed things,” Sgt. Dodds said. However, the call boxes are “still valuable to us. We do have people that still use them.”
Southern Adventist University officials are looking into installing a set of call boxes on their campus for the first time for that reason, said Kevin Penrod, director of campus safety.
Call boxes can cost from a few thousand dollars to as much as $20,000 each but could become invaluable “if your cell phone is off, or you left it in the car ... or if you’re a visitor that doesn’t know the campus very well,” Mr. Penrod said.
School officials hope to include an outgoing announcement option on the boxes to plan for active shooters or other dangerous situations that require fast, widespread dissemination of information, he said.
“It’s kind of a boost (to existing security measures),” Mr. Penrod said.
E-mail Lauren Gregory at lgregory@timesfreepress.com
