That time we talked about 911

I'm ready.

This is episode number 13 of The Homeowner's Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner's Show.

We are so glad that you could be with us today.

We have a very special show that we are super excited to share with you, but before we get to that, we have a special new segment of the program program called Conspiracy Theories with Kevin. Kevin, you got— what do you got for us today?

Well, okay, so just a couple episodes ago we were talking about the college playoffs, right? Yes. And we were trying to figure out, okay, who's gonna get in the playoffs and is UCF gonna get in the playoffs? And I said that I think they should, yeah, being undefeated.

And then they got the big old poke in the eye.

Of course, which we knew was gonna happen. I even said they're probably not going to make it, but But maybe they should.

They didn't take my advice, so now we have to hear about it for the next 7 years.

Right. Now, one thing they did get right is they did not put a 2-loss team in there. They didn't put Georgia in there.

Okay.

Although, you know, some would say that they deserve to be in there over somebody else.

Not me, but go ahead.

Yeah, okay. So here's my conspiracy though. I think so. So today, the day we're recording this, is the day that the Heisman winner will be announced. Right.

Okay.

So, 2 of the top guys are Tua and Murray.

Right.

Right? So, Tua's the quarterback for Alabama, Murray's the quarterback for Oklahoma, and so, it just so happens, by luck of the draw—

Luck of the draw.

That Alabama's number 1, Oklahoma's number 4, and so they have to play each other In the college football playoffs. I think the conspiracy is, let's get these guys together and see who's better.

Yeah, we want the 2 squirreliest quarterbacks to play one another. Is that, is that the deal?

Pretty much. Yep. We'll see if Tua can actually handle it because he didn't finish the SEC Championship.

Maybe. Well, it's a Big 12 team. It may not be as stressful this time.

Ah, there you go. Hey, hey now, you're getting personal.

Yeah, well, It's okay.

It's okay. Fine.

So you think, you think the, the committee conspired to get these 2 guys to face off one another? It's like a boxing match now. Is that—

Sure.

Okay.

Sure.

More money to be made?

I think so.

So do you think the other 2 games even matter at this point?

Well, I mean, I, I don't think they don't matter. I just think that they definitely wanted to make sure that Oklahoma played Alabama.

Okay.

And the only way to make sure that happens is if they're number 1 or 4.

Yeah, so I mean, like, we kind of mentioned this before. Does Oklahoma even have a shot in your mind?

No.

Okay, well, there you go.

No. They're gonna lose, and that's just my prediction.

I'm okay with that, 'cause Kyler's just a defector anyway.

Meh. More conspiracy.

Yeah, so let's go ahead and move forward. You know, we're done with your conspiracy theories now. Put them to bed. We have important things to discuss.

All right.

We have the live show coming up Next Monday.

Yeah, December the 17th.

At the Thistle.

At Thistle Draft Shop.

That's right.

Yeah, it's gonna be awesome.

I think we, we have some, some special guests planned for that and some prizes to give away.

Yeah.

So come out, enjoy some food and beverage, good company, and prizes.

Yeah, it's gonna be fun. Monday night.

Can you think of anything better to do with a Monday night than food, beverage, and prizes? And entertainment, by the way.

Well, yeah, us.

Us. Yeah, I mean, why not? We were enough just to begin with. Absolutely.

I mean, who cares about Monday Night Football?

NFL.

Whatever.

So anyway, we, we hope you can join us. And if you have not already clicked the subscription button there in iTunes, Stitcher, whatever platform you're using to listen to your— what do you listen to? What do you use, Kevin?

I typically use iTunes.

iTunes?

Yeah.

You don't have like another app you're using to—

Well, I use Pocket Casts.

Okay.

Yeah, I really like Pocket Casts.

Can you subscribe to The Homeowner Show in Pocket Casts?

Yeah, it's awesome. It's a great app and you can have it automatically download. It's great.

Yep, send us some money there, Pocket Casts.

There you go.

And you can also find us on YouTube and you can find us on our webpage at, what is that, Kev?

The, actually it's not the. Take the off and it's homeownershow.com.

homeownershow.com.

That's the one.

You can find us there. But with us today, we have our good friend Chip Van Steenberg. Who is the Executive Director of Montgomery County 911. How you doing, Chip?

Doing well, thank you very much.

Man, we're excited you could be here.

Thank you.

This is kind of a unique opportunity in my mind to, uh, to talk about emergency services. I mean, and how, how these affect homeowners.

Yeah, I think, um, you, you know, we, Chip, we talk about a lot of various things and we've got a lot of episodes planned for specific things having to do with You know, how to make your home run well, you know, different things like renovations, remodels, just odd jobs that need to be done around the home to take care of your home. But I think one of the most overlooked things is the fact that as a homeowner, it's important to know, how do I, how do I get out of my home in a stressful situation? You know, how do I get out of my neighborhood in a stressful situation? How do I know, um, lots of different things regarding

emergency services and how those things affect me, how far I am from a fire station or a police station, or lots of different things like that. And, uh, I don't even know that most people understand when I call 911, who am I even talking to and what services do they provide? Because man, I hear stories, Greg, of like people calling 911 to be like, You know, something crazy like, my dog ran away! It's like, we don't really handle runaway dogs, um, things like that. So anyway, I'm excited to kind of talk with you about, um, emergency services.

Well, great. I'm happy to be here. I appreciate the invitation.

Yeah, so just to get us started, tell us how you got started.

I, uh, spent about over 20 years in city management. Working for 4 different cities here in Texas, 2 of them in Montgomery County. We moved down to Conroe in 1994 to go to work for the City of Conroe and worked there for over 10 years, and then down to the City of Shenandoah here in Montgomery County and worked there for 4 years as the city administrator. And then I decided I'd had enough of city management, so I got out of that particular— Moving to something less stressful is Something that, uh, yeah, something that doesn't involve as many city council meetings in particular is what I was looking for. So I did some consulting on my own for a couple years, and then this job opened up at Montgomery County 911, and I got an invitation to

apply for that, and I've been there now for 6 years.

Hmm, okay, awesome. Cool. What's the process for applying for that? I mean, are you sort of recruited?

Is They did. They used, uh, the board that's— Montgomery County 911 is run by a 5-member board that's appointed, um, by various public entities in the county, and they hired a recruiter to, to go through that process.

So you're not elected?

No.

That's kind of fun.

I do. I work for a 5-member board, and they're a great group of people.

Awesome. Okay, cool.

So, um, what, what does your job entail? What do you do?

Well, Montgomery County 911 is the regional 911 authority. So we coordinate the 911 service. We, we sort of stand in between the phone companies and the public safety agencies that answer 911 calls. So we, we make sure that the phone calls are going to the right 911 call center. We coordinate all the— We do all the addressing for the county. Maintain—

now what is that real quick? What's addressing?

Anytime like a new subdivision is developed, that subdivision plat is sent to our office for the—

to—

we assign the addresses.

Oh, okay.

Or if you have a piece of property that doesn't have an address yet, you call us, we assign it an address. So we maintain that whole database and, uh, and, and then the mapping that goes with that. We coordinate with the phone companies And then we also provide equipment and support. There's 4 911 call centers in Montgomery County, each run by a different public safety agency. We provide equipment to them and support to them and the networks that they operate off of.

Wow, that's a bunch. I had no idea that you guys are the ones that assigned addresses.

Yes.

That's really cool. So like, what is the process for that?

It's, uh, it's, it's a very simple process. If you have If it's a platting issue, you know, it's a new subdivision, um, there's a, there's a platting process that you've got to get that approved by either the city or the county depending upon where you're located. One step in that process is to send the plat to our office and we will put the addresses on the streets on all the lots and you show that, that has been done. You go out there like with a wooden stake or something like that? It's drawing it on a map.

Okay.

Yes.

Okay.

Or if you've got a piece of property, and this happens a lot, where folks have a piece of property that doesn't have an address on it yet, they'll call us to get an address.

Or if like a piece of property gets subdivided or something like that.

Correct.

Okay, correct.

That's the platting process I'm speaking of. Yeah.

I guess I just thought the Postal Service did that kind of stuff.

We work with the Postal Service, but no, it's a In every county's different. Down in Harris County, the electric company does all the addressing because usually the first address you need is for a temporary power pole. And so the electric company gets into the business of assigning addresses down in Harris County.

Yeah. He's just being humble, man. He's like, no, the post office answers to me.

Yeah, exactly. I feel like Apple Maps should answer to him.

Google Maps, Apple Maps, they answer to no one. We will, uh, we don't know where they get their addresses sometimes.

No, I don't either.

It's all—

don't get me started.

Everything's algorithms.

I guess so. Okay, cool.

Well, so, so what is— so I know you oversee the call centers, and, and so what, what is— but like, is it just 911? Are you also overseeing like 411s and other things like that, or is it just 911?

Well, all right. Our organization does not oversee the call centers. We just are partners with the call centers.

Partners with, okay.

So like the largest one in Montgomery County is the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office.

Okay.

They answer about 80% of the 911 calls in the county. That's run by the Sheriff's Office. It's staffed by the Sheriff's Office. We provide support. We also provide some funds for the Sheriff to hire some of the call takers. But we don't have a 411 or a 311 call service here in Montgomery County. Those are available in other places.

Sure.

We don't happen to have one here. They just, they have a 10-digit line that they publish. If you need, if you need assistance, but it's not an emergency, you know, they've got a number that they publish. So those, those calls are answered at the same location across our equipment. They use that, our equipment for that as well. In fact, there's more in the call center. The number of non-emergency calls that they answer and process is about twice the number of 911 calls.

And, and so I, I think you said you guys help provide equipment for those call centers.

We do.

And so is that something that has to be consistently updated?

It does.

Yeah.

Yes.

I mean, are you, are you guys like digital systems, hardline systems? What are you guys, what are you guys running with?

Well, that's— we've got a hybrid. So the— we're still operating on the original 911 platform. By the way, we're celebrating 50 years of 911 calls this year. The first 911 call was 1968 in a community in Alabama. I think it's Haleyville or Haleyville, Alabama was the first 911 call. We're still operating on that platform, that architecture.

So Alabama is still number one.

Yeah. No matter what. It's conspiracy, Kevin.

It's all conspiracy. Sorry to interrupt.

Keep going. Nobody beats Alabama.

No.

So we're still talking—

Most emergencies.

That copper line system, it's kind of a central— it's a centralized 911 architecture where all the calls go to a central point in a geographic region. In our region, Houston, there's 2 911 nodes. So if you call 911, your call's getting routed to that node way down in the medical center in Houston from this area. And then that call will come back to Montgomery County. So all that is operating—

That sounds like it's slow, but it's pretty instantaneous.

It's very instantaneous. And all that operates off that original architecture. But once inside our call center, we're all— we convert that to an IP process.

Okay.

And the whole industry is working on upgrading everything to IP. It'll be IP from beginning to end. That's in the, in the works, and hopefully that's the end game. 2023, hopefully, is what we're heading for.

Okay, so can you, can you walk us through— I mean, say someone calls 911. I mean, can you, can you sort of take us through that call process from when that person makes that call to the person that they're talking to, and then what happens? I imagine it depends on the emergency, but like, can you, can you sort of take us through that process? Like, because I imagine you guys are part of that training for those Those call takers.

Yeah. And let me just, with the caveat that most of what I'm going to discuss is specific to Montgomery County. Montgomery County, sure. Where we're located. Um, and some of it's applicable in other places, but, uh, there's always a few. 911 is a great example of a federal program. All right. It's locally and state-run, very little, uh, direction or funding or regulation from the federal government. So it's going to vary a little bit as you go from location to location. But here in Montgomery County, when you dial 911, your call is going to go to one of 2 call centers depending upon where you're located. You either go to the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office or you'll go to the Conroe Police Department.

And those 2 agencies will handle all law enforcement calls for the county because the sheriff, through through an arrangement, older ancient arrangement, dispatches for all the other cities in Montgomery County. They're all very small organizations. So if you have a law enforcement issue, that call is going to be handled, processed with that, with that initial 911 call. If you need fire or emergency medical services, you're going to get transferred to a secondary call center. We call them PSAPs in our industry jargon, stands for Public Safety Answering Points. You'll get transferred to a secondary PSAP. We have a unique entity here in Montgomery County, the Montgomery County Hospital District, that provides EMS service countywide.

Mm-hmm.

So they are excellent dispatchers for emergency medical issues. If you have emergency medical, you're going to get transferred to the hospital district, and not only will they get an ambulance going to you, but they're going to go through a lot of questions and protocols before the ambulance ever gets there. So you'll have some treatment that'll be planned en route. In fact, they handle emergency medical calls for a lot of the rural areas of Texas that don't have professional EMS dispatchers.

Yeah.

So that they've got the protocols and the physicians' instructions that they can provide across Texas. If it's a fire call, you're going to get transferred to The Woodlands Fire Department unless you're in the city of Conroe. That's a That's the only exception to the rule. But anywhere in Montgomery County, if you've got a fire call, The Woodlands Fire Department is going to dispatch for that no matter where it is in the county. The Conroe fire is dispatched by the hospital district. So if you're in the city of Conroe. Now, there's 2 important things to note about calling from a cell phone. About 80% of 911 calls are made from wireless phones. And the first thing to note is that the

call is routed based upon the location of the cell tower.

Okay.

So that's going to mean that occasionally there's going to be some misroutes. As I drove into this, to the studio here today, Craig, I noticed I crossed a sign just down the road that says you're leaving Conroe city limits. So when you call—

That's a fun story I can tell you later.

When you call 911, You may hit a cell tower in Conroe city limits depending upon whose service you're using and what the cell tower's capacity is for that day. So you may go, your call may go into the city of Conroe and it's to be answered by Conroe PD. They'll have to transfer you to the Sheriff's Office.

Okay.

So the call's routed based upon the location of the cell tower, which means occasionally you're gonna hit the wrong jurisdiction. Second thing you need to know is that The only thing that we get from a cell call is we don't have your name and we don't have your address. We have the carrier that handled the call, and also we have the address of the cell tower. And we will get, usually a couple seconds behind the call, we'll get an approximate location provided by your cell phone company.

Okay.

So that could be accurate anywhere to within 50 meters, which is not real accurate.

Sure.

So that location information can get better over time depending upon how fast the call processes and how fast it's answered. Usually the call taker already has that location when they answer the phone, but the order of the process is route the call first and then go get the location information and send it to the call center. So it'll lag a couple seconds behind.

Yeah, I'm curious as to how far away you can be from a cell tower. I mean, like, I don't know the distance. I mean, could you be like 2 miles away from this? I don't know how far that reaches.

Sometimes they can hop. If a cell tower's got too much capacity, they may even push you to another cell tower.

Which is— you could be even further away, right? Okay.

But generally, 2 miles, I don't think you could hit a cell tower from 2 miles away.

I don't know.

I'm not an engineer. The trend is to actually go smaller, especially as 5G comes into an area. We're talking about very small nodes. The goal of the carriers is to get you onto fiber as soon as possible.

Right.

So a small, small node that could only cover like a 500-foot radius, for example, like on a street pole or a traffic pole, and try to get you off the air and onto Onto digit— onto fiber as quick as possible. That's the route that we're seeing.

So do you have like the inside scoop? Is that coming or is that already here?

There is lots of activity. I can't tell you which carriers are starting to get those nodes ready. There's lots of fiber going in the ground to support that. Obviously the more dense locations, we'll see that first into Houston and parts of Montgomery County. It'll be a little bit longer for the further away you get from the dense areas.

Yeah, well, that's really interesting. So I guess one of the things is if you have a home phone, basically you're telling us that you get a lot better— you get more information about where that's coming from, which allows you to route it more specifically.

That's correct. The old traditional landline or even a VoIP phone. That information is passed through a database based on the phone number. So we get your customer name, your customer address, and your phone number that's sent there.

So I guess it would be helpful if you did live in a more rural area to make sure that you had a home phone, a landline of some sort.

I always recommend if you've got a landline right now and you You wonder or not whether you should keep it. Most— you can get it for very cheap or free a lot of times in combination with the package of cell phone service, or I'm sorry, um, television, internet, or television service. Okay, go ahead and keep it. And I don't have a phone connected to mine, but I have a phone that I keep in storage so that if the power goes out, you know, the, the old phone system, the power is supplied through the, through the telephone line.

Sure.

So you could have power out and still be able to dial 911 or or make other calls as well. So yes, I recommend if you've got a landline, it's not bothering you, just go ahead and keep it and put the phone away if you don't like to hear it ring.

Like, how much time is, I mean, like, what's your efficiency increase based off being able to get that address off that landline versus a cell phone where you're like, this is my address, or I can locate that person within 50 meters? I imagine that's pretty exponential.

Yeah, I don't have that. I don't have the metric on how much—

But I would imagine it's more efficient for you guys.

Yes. Yeah, we have a dispatchable— what's called a dispatchable address. That does speed that process up because when you call 911 on a cell phone, the first thing they're going to ask you is, you know, what's your location? Yeah, well, besides what's your emergency, they'll also ask for your location and try to get a name from you as well. And a lot of people don't know their location. You know, they're most— the great thing about cell phones, we take them with us everywhere, and you make a 911 call, you don't necessarily know the address of, of the building you're in.

Well, I would assume that the stress level of a person—

Yes.

Legitimately calling 911, that, that also overrides their ability to, to think rationally about, oh, I'm in this location, right? I would think.

That's correct. But our dispatchers really know the communities very well, and people start giving landmarks and they can hone in on that. But it does— there can be some hiccups with that. There can be some problems. And that 50-meter radius is usually like the worst-case scenario.

Yeah.

It's usually better than that. And then over time it will get better. They can do— the dispatchers can do what's called a rebid where they ask the carrier to update that. But that location is based on triangulation and the capabilities of your handset if you've got a GPS in there. So it takes a little while to hone in on it. It's not the same location technology that's used by an app, for example, like Uber or Domino's or anybody else that knows your location. It's a different type of technology.

Sure. So let me, let me ask you this question in conjunction with that. Specifically, so, uh, smartphones these days, uh, if you're, if you're updated on the latest operating system, most of them have emergency information inside the phone. Now that's typically for if someone arrives on a scene and they find a cell phone, it's got information for that person.

That's correct.

Um, is there any way that you— and you may not know this, but Is there any way that you can enable any type of location services if you use an emergency number? Like if you were to call from your cell phone 911, is there a way to enable a location service connected to that? Do you know?

It's a great question, and the answer is, is that it's already done for you. Oh, but that's a very recent development. Apple came first in the fall, and then just a month or two later, Android Okay. Adopted that process. So—

So there you go. Apple cares more about people.

They're the Alabama of all cell phones.

So when you dial 911, it automatically turns on all your location services.

Oh.

And it provides that to a clearinghouse. Whether or not your 911 call center can receive that information is a different question, and how they receive that information.

Okay.

Because it's so new, There's, there's not a lot of dispatchers that are going to see that yet, but from what I've seen on product demonstrations, that's, that's going to be coming soon.

Great.

So we'll get both the carrier-provided location and the what we call commercial location based upon the location services on your phone, and those will be both displayed on the same map. Right now in Montgomery County, we provide a product to our call centers that does show that location, but it's on a separate map that's not quite as prominent as their primary map. So they have to go look for it, but it's there in case they're trying to find a location.

Yeah, I'm sure that's all just a process of making sure that the technology on this end matches up with the technology on your end, and surely there's a lag time involved, and hopefully over time that will get better and better and better.

Right, right. The, uh, my personal opinion, sometimes government regulation slows down adapting to new technology. Okay, so the FCC a long time ago made a requirement back in the '90s for cell phone companies to provide location for 911 calls, and they did that based upon the assumption that at the time, if you were at home, you were going to use your landline to call 911. So you're only gonna use the cell phone if you're outdoors. So they developed an outdoors location accuracy requirement. And if you recall, those were the days before we had smartphones. We were just looking at flip phones. They had to use the triangulation technology. That regulation has stuck.

Hmm.

So as the cell phone and smartphone industry has adapted and location services has improved, we're still using a 1990s technology. The good news is that rule's changed. It's being— the new location regulations are being phased in over the next few years, so it should get better and better, both on the routing side. We're going to try to route you based upon your location, not on your— not on the location of your cell phone, and then on delivering an accurate location to the call taker when he or she answers the phone.

So government regulations slowing things down. How dare you, sir?

I say that as a 25-year government Floyd.

Yeah, there you go. That's okay. Well, so, so, um, another question that I've, I've got is, you know, you mentioned, you mentioned police department, you mentioned fire department. Um, I, I don't know that I've ever seen something written down or told to me at some point, this is what to call 911 for and this is not what to call 911 for. Um, Can you walk us through some general information that if I'm, if I'm talking to my child, for example, um, just about safety around my home, what types of things would I tell them for this instance call 911?

Protection of, of life and property are what are the general, uh, guidelines that are given on call 911. If you feel like life or property is in danger, It's time to call 911.

Okay.

The call centers that we work with here in Montgomery County will encourage you to call 911 if that's— if you're not sure, you can still call.

Okay. You're not going to be like fined or something like that?

No.

Okay.

There is a criminal offense for misusing 911, but you know, that's rarely put to the test. And believe me, there are certain citizens around here that have tested the patience of our 911 services, but they're very patient with them.

I bet.

But obviously, you know, if it's something that happens on the rare occasion, that's definitely not going to be a concern. So protection of life and property, if you feel like either one of those are in danger, call 911. And even if you've got a question about whether or not you can should call 911, go ahead and do it. There are numbers published on our website, mcc911.org, that are non-emergency numbers that you can call. Sometimes those are lower priority calls, and sometimes it may take a while to get answered. But if you, if you don't feel like it's a 911 situation, but you still want to talk to somebody in emergency services, you can, you can find one of those 10-digit numbers.

Yeah, we had a situation Um, I don't know, about a month ago where I was actually— I was traveling another state and staying with some friends, and a guy was just walking down the middle of the road, and it was clear that he was not all there mentally. And so I, I was just legitimately concerned that he might hurt himself, um, but I, I didn't think that was a 911 thing, so I I just called the local police department instead. And so I guess that you've answered my question though. What, you know, life and property, those are the, the reasons to call. So, um, if let's say that I call and it's not a life or

property situation, does that then get re— rerouted, or is it just— how does, how does that hand— how's that handled on, on the 911 side?

Once a call comes in, it goes into a system that the agencies use called a CAD, a computer-aided dispatch. So those, those types of calls are prioritized. So if you had a lower-level call, let's say you just want to talk to an officer because you've seen someone suspicious in the neighborhood, you know, that's going to go in at a certain priority as opposed to somebody who's got, you know, an active situation going on right then.

Okay.

So the call won't get rerouted. You'll just— it'd be very rare for a call taker to ask you to hang up and call back on a non-emergency line. There are separate processes. The 911 system goes across special trunk lines, and it is a— it's got a higher level of priority and technology behind it. But I doubt you'll be asked to hang up and call. They'll just go ahead and enter your information and prioritize it.

Okay.

As necessary.

Okay. So I imagine there's like a threshold of what makes it a legitimate call, and I'm curious if there's anything that comes to mind that was just like a ridiculous use of 911 here in Montgomery County. I mean, like, I don't know, can you think of anything that's happened that you can share?

Yeah, nothing comes That comes to mind right now. I hear the call takers talk a lot. They could tell you all sorts of stories, and they do tell some good stories. Directions are the one they get a lot.

Like how to get somewhere?

How do I get to McDonald's?

Yes.

Because I'm thinking in my mind, like, I know some mothers who, like, if there was a broken finger, would think this is a life and property situation. Like, 911, what do I do? Splint the finger.

Yeah, definitely. So, um, so obviously we're, we're a podcast that is to help homeowners. So in your mind, is there something as a homeowner that you would, you would tell someone who is a homeowner? These are some, you know, just things regarding things that I know as an emergency services person that you should think about when it comes to how you either have your home set up, the way you interact at home. If a situation happens, um, this may be a protocol. I, I would assume that most people do not have any type of major exit strategy for their home. You know, we live in a, in a area that's high flood possibilities, so maybe they've got some protocols that they go for that. You know, if you live in an area of the country where tornadoes

are a threat, you may know some things like that. But are there any specific things that you would suggest right now?

Yeah, a couple things. The first thing and the easiest thing you can do is go take a look at your home from the street and see how easy it is for an emergency service personnel to find your home, to find your address. Is your address easily displayed? And can they tell quickly when they've reached your home? Because that's a challenge.

It's important for the pizza man too.

Exactly.

Second thing, you know, as you mentioned, there are different types of emergencies that are more prominent depending upon the location. So here, hurricanes and floods are major issues here as opposed to earthquakes in other parts of the country or tornadoes further north in Texas are more severe, it seems like. So you can know to be prepared for different types of emergencies, but everybody should be able— the goal is for you to be self-sufficient for about 72 hours.

Hmm.

When the big one comes, whatever the big one is, emergency services are gonna be stressed to the limit. And if you're able to take care of yourself, that really helps out.

Okay.

So make sure that you've got some good perishable food and enough water. If you've got medicine that needs refrigerated, or if you've got somebody on oxygen, you're gonna need a generator. So just evaluate what it would take for you to live off the grid If power were down for 72 hours and emergency services were stretched to the limit, you know, and if that means evacuation, like we get great warnings on hurricanes around here. If you can get out, if you need to get out or get somebody out that's a little more vulnerable, you know, take the time to do that.

Were you working emergency services last time we had an evacuation?

Yes.

You talking about Hurricane Ike?

Yeah.

Yes. I was city administrator for Shenandoah.

Oh my gosh.

Which was— I won't say it was ground zero, but it was, you know, they— where Interstate 45 went from 4 lanes to 2 lanes.

Yeah.

We were just south of that.

So, okay, it wasn't ground zero, but it was ground Alabama.

Uh, 4 lanes northbound, um, turned into, uh, about 13 lanes northbound.

Wow.

When you count out of the service roads on both sides of the freeway, and they weren't going anywhere.

Yeah, it was all parked.

No, I vividly remember that. One, it was on my birthday.

Oh wow.

Two, I was hauling 3 horses. Uh, can you— I mean, like, imagine getting stuck on, on that nightmare with hauling all that. So, wow.

Yeah, yeah, that was, uh, you know, and people require emergency services. That was just— it was, it was hot.

Yeah.

We had pets pass away, had somebody pass away in Shenandoah that was sitting in a car that day. We had to close a store. We had to use the mayor's powers of emergency to close the store because it was getting close to a rioting situation.

Oh my gosh.

So they had very, very few supplies left.

And people were just going nuts.

The local management wanted to close, but their Their higher-ups were telling them to stay open, and it was, uh, everybody's looking for a place to go to the bathroom, and they were looking for supplies, and there was neither one of those.

Wow, that's crazy.

And so you guys were the ones that actually went in and shut that down, or—

We did, man. Our police department did. Yeah.

Wow, that's crazy.

Much to the relief of the local staff.

Yeah, well, sure. Yeah, and you know, when it comes to emergency services, safety is the number one concern. Right?

Yes.

Keep people safe. And so I can imagine in those situations, it's, it's time to keep people safe. You gotta do what you gotta do.

Correct.

Yeah.

So are there technology items that people can have in their homes that make it easier for you guys to be helpful?

Sure. That's another— thank you, Craig, for that segue.

You are welcome.

I couldn't even prepare you for. Here in Montgomery County, we, we have a a service that we offer that you can create what's called a safety profile and attach all your phone numbers for your household onto that profile so that if anyone calls 911 from any of those numbers, that profile is going to pop up.

Hmm.

So you can have your names, obviously, the address of your, of your house, things about your house that you'd like people to know, first responders, if you've got a A way to enter the house, a gate code or a garage code, or multiple facilities on one property. Craig, like this compound here.

Compound, I like that. I like it.

If you've got somebody that's got some, some medical conditions, allergic reactions, maybe you got somebody with dementia that lives on, or if you got communication issues, yeah, deaf or hard of hearing. All the information is going to be in their profile. You can upload pictures of your family. You can put on your pets, emergency contacts, vehicles, license plate numbers. So if somebody calls 911, even if they can't communicate, now the call taker's got all that information available to them. So maybe if your child calls 911, for example, you know, the dispatcher's got that information. They can do that by going to smart911.com.

Okay.

You can create your profile. We have partnered with, uh, this company's called Rave Mobile Safety. They're out of Boston, so this product is available across the country but not in every community. But your SMART 911 profile goes with you. So if you're, for example, Kevin, the whole state of Arkansas has SMART 911.

Okay.

So if you had created a profile up there, it would still be— when you call 911 here in Montgomery County, your profile would would still show up at the call center because both us and Arkansas have access to that information.

Okay, so that, that smart911.com is going to be the place where if you're not in Texas, if you're not in Montgomery County specifically, um, maybe you're in upstate New York, um, I could go there and see if it's offered?

Correct.

Is that the way that works?

You can enter your, your zip code and it will tell you if it's offered.

Okay.

As well. Yeah, cool.

Is there reciprocity on that on a lot of states?

There's, um, there's other prod— other vendors that provide that product.

Okay.

Unfortunately, there's not a way to cross platforms right now. So—

Well, but that's okay as long as you know—

What it is in your state.

Yeah, as long as you know what it is in your state or specifically your county where you're going to reside most of the time.

Right.

Um, and what— let's say I don't know, uh, is there— who would you recommend calling in order— 911 is probably not the right number to call and find out, is there a way I can update a profile just in case I call this number in the future?

Do not do that.

So what's up? How do I get a hold of the right person to find out, is there a way that I can create a profile? The police? Call the police department maybe?

I would think that would be the best place. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Is it— I mean, I'm wondering, for like Montgomery County, is that like on our Montgomery County website that you can do that, or—

It's— you will find it on various Montgomery County websites. Yeah, mc911.org is, is the website of our organization. A lot of people assume we're an agency of the county, but we're not. We're a separate, totally independent unit of local government. So, um, you won't find it on— so you find it on our website, you'll find it, I believe, on the sheriff's, City of Conroe, different places you can find that information.

Mm-hmm.

But yeah, your local police department should be able to tell you if they've got a service like that. Greater Harris County, which is a partner agency to ours, they cover both Harris and Fort Bend County. They've got a similar service, but it's not Smart911. It's something that they developed themselves. And that's— if you go to their website at ghc911.org, you can register for theirs. But if you live in Montgomery County and work in Harris County, you can fill out profiles in both places because you may call 911 while you're at work. So, and it's vice versa. If you, if you visit Montgomery County a lot, you can create a profile as well.

Well, yeah.

Because that gives us your, your name and, and an address. Which we don't have right now when you call.

On a cell phone or something like that?

On a cell phone, correct.

So I'm curious, like, for instance, where we're at right now, there's— you won't get cell service because this is kind of like a metal building, right? But, um, there's Wi-Fi. So like, say I have like an old cell phone, which is— that's what I let my kids play on all the time, and they dial 911 on that. That's gonna get routed how?

Well, uh, 2 issues there.

Yeah.

Um, a long time ago, FCC mandated that any cell phone that can get— any cell phone, uh, can dial 911 whether it's got a SIM card in it or not. If we call them non-initialized cell phones.

Okay.

So you— they— if, if you've got an old cell phone that you're letting your child play with, yeah, and doesn't have a SIM card in it and they can't make phone calls, They can still call 911.

Oh, that's cool.

Or not cool.

Or not cool.

Yeah, especially if you think—

I mean, like, I'm thinking safety-wise, I'm glad it can do that.

And that was the reason for it, for safety reasons as well. It does get abused from time to time, um, because we can't— we get no location services, we get no carrier information, we don't get anything off that. So make sure that, uh, that you can speak when you call, because, uh, otherwise it would be pointless. Yeah.

Okay.

So that's one thing. Another thing is a lot of cell phones do, or smartphones do have the ability to make Wi-Fi calling right now. So you have to turn that on. And when you turn on Wi-Fi calling, it's going to ask you for an address. This happened just recently. We were up for a family wedding in Pennsylvania, very rural western Pennsylvania. And we were renting a house and there was woods and cornfields all around us. There was no cell towers. So I turned on Wi-Fi calling for the first time. So I entered my, my address at home because that's where I'd be calling from most of the time. If I had called 911 while I was in Pennsylvania, it would have been answered at Conroe Police Department, not rural western Pennsylvania, because it would have used that particular

address for the routing. So when you turn on wireless calling, it will try to locate you and route you that way. But most of the time it's using—

It's going to default to—

Wi-Fi calling because Yeah, because you can't get cell tower service.

Okay.

Wow.

So just be aware that you might wind up back home. Same thing with a, like, a nomadic VoIP. Like if you've got MagicJack or Vonage or Skype even for your phone call, if you— they'll generally ask you for an address when you sign up for that service. So if you call 911 on that, it's going to route to that address.

Oh wow.

Which we've had some interesting stories, I think. I think the farthest away we had was Seoul, South Korea, where somebody dialed 911.

I don't think we support that.

On their laptop. They have a lot of people that stay on the road and use their laptops for their phone service. Anyway, this person was having some medical issues in Seoul, South Korea, dialed 911 and wound up at the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office.

Goodness. So is 911 not just an American thing? I mean, or Canadian thing? Is it international now?

It's international, but not necessarily the same number.

Okay.

I'm sorry that I can't remember some of the different numbers.

So disappointing, Jeff.

Yes, there was— there's every once in a while there'll be this resurgence of a, uh, of a Facebook post that gets circulated that tells you to call a different number because it's faster. Um, that's just— that's, that's an urban myth. It's, it's, it's the international number that's used in Europe is the one I see. Most phones will automatically, um, convert it for you. So if you took your phone internationally, dialed 911, but the local number was something different, it would— it'll convert it. And that's cool, vice versa. So, but, but not all phones do. So if you think, oh, I'm safe just to, just to dial 112, I think is the European number.

Yeah, and a lot of them are 119, which is the opposite of 911.

You think, oh, I'll just dial that instead.

Thank you for clarifying that, Kevin.

Yeah, you're welcome. I know lots of useless information like that.

So don't fall for any— we see a lot of them. Don't fall for anything on social media that says, hey, do this instead, your phone call will get answered faster, because that's not true.

Okay, gotcha.

So just be careful with anything that requires you to register your own address. Just understand that that's, that's an important calculation in how your cell phone call will be routed.

And it can be very helpful.

Yes.

I mean, because again, like you said, you're in Pennsylvania, but most of the time you're not, right? It's just the way that goes.

Well, so we're running up on an hour here. Is, is there anything that you wish more people knew about emergency services? I mean, maybe specific to Montgomery County or just in general?

Hmm. Let me— I do have one other thing I want to cover real quick, and then I'll answer that question. We, uh, we do have the ability now, at least in Montgomery County and really all of the Houston area, to text to 911.

So, um, so if you can't speak, if you can't speak, or especially in a, in a maybe a situation where you don't need to speak, right?

Don't want to speak.

Don't want to speak because of a certain situation. You don't know what them calling—

you don't want someone else knowing Yeah, we get that a lot with domestic violence.

Sure.

As well.

So that's, uh, that's a service that is, um, rapidly expanding across the country. All of the greater Houston area has that ability now. We do say call if you can, but if you can't, you know, you can send a text to 911.

Okay, great. That's cool.

Um, the other thing, I guess, People, you shouldn't believe what they see in movies on how great the technology is. We don't always know where you are exactly. We don't have the location that we get from you does not automatically update. So if you're, if you're driving down the road, for example, calling 911, you know, we don't see the breadcrumbs unless we ask the cell phone company to give us an updated location. So if you move and don't tell us, you know, we're going to go to the, to the old place where you were. Um, and then it's all— it really is, it's going to be different wherever you go because we have this great system in the United States of federalism. We let local authorities make

local decisions for emergency services. So don't just assume if you move from one community to the other that it's going to operate like it does. You know, most communities in Texas, the fire department operates the ambulances. That's not the case here in Montgomery County. Okay, none of the fire departments run paramedic service, although they will go out and assist, right? Usually the, the first unit to show up on the scene is a fire truck.

Closest, typically.

Yeah, but your fire department doesn't operate the ambulances. You'll probably get a bill for that service as well, so make sure you Get ready for that and contact your insurance company. A lot of times that's strictly an insurance decision. Yeah. Um, but yeah, things are going to be, you know—

But some things aren't. I mean, like, we, we actually had a fire here.

Yes.

That, I mean, like, I was anticipating that being a bill and it wasn't. I mean, it's like we went to the fire department like, what do we owe you? And like, that's what we do, right?

That's what you pay taxes for, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. Here in Montgomery County, for example, there's really only 2 traditional municipal fire departments. The City of Conroe runs a fire department. The Woodlands runs a fire department, although The Woodlands is not a city. It's a special district entity, township, which there's only one in Texas. So it's a— it's their own set of, uh, of laws that they have specific to The Woodlands, but it operates kind of like a city, and they've got a fire department. All the other fire departments here started as, as volunteer fire departments. They've now evolved into emergency service districts, which has some taxing authority behind it. So they're not— they answer to nobody but, but the emergency service district. So they're run by

boards appointed by the county commissioner's court. They're not attached to cities.

Okay.

So every— so that's going to be different.

Yeah.

As you move around. So that's the thing I would say is just familiarize yourself with your local Volunteer or your local emergency service providers.

Great.

Yeah.

Well, cool. Well, that's all really good information. I guarantee there's stuff here that I didn't know before we started.

So I'm gonna go with all of it.

And that's the way it should be. Most folks don't need to know. But occasionally when you get that, get that opportunity to call, like you said, it's not usually— it's not their best day. Yeah, they're a little panicked, stressed out.

Yep.

So just be prepared to give that location. Okay. You got to start thinking about that sometimes before you make the call. It's like, where am I? How am I going to tell these, these folks where we are?

Yeah. Okay, great. Well, um, I guess it's, uh, time to transition to the last portion of our show here, which is the Final Four.

The Final Four!

All right, so, uh, these are just 4 questions we ask each of our guests. And, um, we'll see if you pass. Uh, the first question is, what is the must-have tool that you won't leave the house without?

Well, if it's for my job, my backpack's got my Surface in it and my hotspot because we're technology, we're a technology agency, right? Most likely it's going to be a technology solution to whatever the problem is. But if I'm coming to your house to help you with something, um, I don't, I don't have a lot of really good tools, so I'm going to grab my best one, which is a drill.

Yeah.

And make sure I've got that with me because I can do a lot of damage with that.

Yes, you can.

Surface Pro, he's cheating on Apple, dude.

Hey, well, whenever the government buys you stuff, you got to use what they give you, right?

That's right. Technology floozy. Look at him.

You know, I, I've got a lot— I got love in my heart for all.

There you go, just like a government official. Number 2, what's a job you've walked away from? So, so maybe, maybe a job at your house, or just, uh, something that at some point you just threw your hands up and said, I'm done with this, I'm gonna call in somebody else to take care of this?

I used to tackle a lot of things myself, but anything plumbing related, I've decided it's— I cause more problems than I fix. Anytime you touch the plumbing, yeah, you're going to mess something up. So I've got this wonderful neighbor, he's a plumber for the Aldine School District, I think, and he's got the tools with him and And he usually just charges me like a case of beer. And, uh, nice. Yeah, so I, I, I get Bob, my neighbor. If you're listening, Bob.

Hey, you know, that's not a bad arrangement. Find out who your neighbors are.

That's right.

Some of them can be more helpful than you realize. Like our neighbors, our neighbors work for Borden Milk, and so regularly they just bring us over nice milk, which is awesome.

So altruistic, totally altruistic reason for getting to know your neighbors, but you might get some side benefits.

You might get some side benefits.

Chocolate milk.

Nothing wrong with baking a pie every once in a while. That's right.

'Tis the season to meet your neighbors.

That's right.

Yeah. All right, uh, 3rd question: how do you wind down at the end of a long day just to kind of de-stress and you know, get ready for whatever is going to come the next day?

Yeah, just about every evening my wife and I will go for a walk. We have a route in our neighborhood, it's about a little over 2 miles.

Okay.

And, uh, we do that probably 4 or 5 times a week. And we found it's good, first of all, for your mental health, just the de-stress. We used to take the kids, push them in the stroller.

Yeah.

Or they'd ride their bikes. Now it's just the two of us. And, uh, so we've been doing that for probably almost all the 30 years we've been married.

Wow.

And it just— it's such a part of the routine that when it doesn't happen, you know, it kind of gets me a little twitchy. So, uh, so that's, that's something I look forward to every evening.

Cool.

That's awesome.

Yeah, and, uh, this area you can do that almost, almost 365 days a year. Yeah, absolutely. All right, so last question. What is one of the best pieces of wisdom or advice that you've ever been given?

Yeah, I think it's, uh, that there's a different season, different seasons of life. So enjoy the season that you're in. Don't look, don't look forward to the next one because it's going to come, and then this season that you're in right now is going to close out. So just enjoy, you know, when your kids are young, or if you don't have kids, enjoy that. When your kids are young, enjoy that. We're in a new phase of life for us with the empty nest, and there's, uh, there's lots to enjoy about that. I miss some— I miss some of the activities that we used to be involved in, but we lived those to the fullest, so I don't have any regrets. And now

we're in this next stage.

Cool. So be in the moment.

That's right.

I love it.

I do too.

So Chip, if anybody has any questions or wants to reach out to you, how do they get a hold of you?

They can either call me or send email. Our office number is— or my direct line is 936-523-5915, or send an email to me at cvansteenberg@mc911.org.

Awesome. We'll link that up in the show notes as well.

Great.

Yeah, along with Smart911. 911.com.

Please.

Yeah, yeah, that'd be great.

I'm gonna go put my profile up for sure.

Yeah, me too. I didn't know that was an option.

We don't, we don't have a hard line, so it's gonna be like important for us to do that.

Same.

Yeah, so if you have not clicked the subscription button yet after this episode, you need to go ahead and do that.

Yeah, go leave us a review too. That would really help us out. We, we need some reviews. And if you do, we'll, we'll give you a shout out.

Yep, maybe we'll even mail you a sticker.

Yeah.

That'd be cool.

We got some new stickers. Woo!

Uh, yeah, so go ahead and hit the subscription button, notification bell there on YouTube to find out about new episodes. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, pretty much any social media platform you want. Uh, you can also find us on the webpage at homeownershow.com. You can send us a message at info@homeownershow.com, and please remember to join us next week. December the 17th at our live show at the Thistle Draft Shop down in Spring, Texas. We would love to meet you, give you a sticker, share a beverage, share a laugh, mostly at Kevin's expense.

Um, most of them are.

Anything else, Kev?

And I think it's all, Chip. Thank you so much for joining us today. It was, uh, it was great. And, um, yeah, um, you said it all, Craig. So So I think that's about it. Join us next Tuesday and every Tuesday as new episodes release, and we'll see you next time.

See ya!