e911

Enhanced 911, E-911 or E911 is a system that links emergency callers with the appropriate public resources.  The system tries to automatically associate a location with the origin of the call. This location may be a physical address or other geographic reference information such as X/Y map coordinates. The caller's telephone number is used in various ways to derive a location that can be used to dispatch police, fire, emergency medical and other response resources. Automatic location of the emergency makes it quicker to locate the required resources during fires, break-ins, kidnappings, and other events where communicating one's location is difficult or impossible. 
 
When the call arrives at Douglas County Dispatch, special computer software is used to display the location of the caller immediately upon arrival of the call.  The system only works  if the emergency telephone number 911 is called. Calls made to other telephone numbers, even though they may be listed as an emergency telephone number, do not enable this feature.