During the eight years Raymond LaBelle has been in charge of the state’s emergency telephone system, he has focused on continual upgrades he says have allowed Rhode Island to remain at the forefront of technological advances. The 911 call center handled 583,000 calls in 2007 and, by the end of November, had handled more than 600,000 in the first 11 months of 2008. LaBelle estimates that about 6 to 8 percent of calls are inappropriate, including ones from people looking for pizza or the time of day.

The 911 system in July became part of the R.I. Department of Public Safety, under the jurisdiction of the state police.

PBN: The E-911 emergency telephone system in Rhode Island has been in place 20 years, as of November. Would you briefly describe the system?

LABELLE: We provide 24-hour emergency service to the citizens of the state of Rhode Island, as well as visitors to our state, from one location here [on Smith Street] in North Providence. We handle all of the 911 calls, whether they’re landline or wireless. As we speak, around 70 percent of our calls are from wireless devices.

We do not dispatch, we transfer. We ascertain what the emergency is and, within seconds, the call is transferred to police, fire or rescue in that community. We have a staff of 53 people, six of [whom] are in what we call administration, including myself, and the rest are either tele-communicators, the people who actually take the calls, and/or supervisors. … We’re 24/7, 365 [days a year]. …

In 1988, we were the first state to have what they call “enhanced” service – when you see E-911, the “e” is for “enhanced,” which means from the very get-go we would get the location of the caller and the call-back telephone number. Most people think the “e” stands for “emergency.” In some states even to this day, they have what they call “basic” 911, which is no information at all.

PBN: How do you track cell phone calls?

LABELLE: Way back, if we got a call from someone on a cell phone and they couldn’t tell us where they were, we couldn’t help them. …The whole thing is, if we can’t find you, we can’t help you. So, in 1995, the Federal Communications Commission issued an executive order … requiring all cell phone carriers to provide location technology to the call centers in the country … We now get the latitude and longitude [coordinates], plus the cell-tower location and the call-back number [for every cell phone call]. … In 2001, we commenced a geo-coding project and had this company come into the state and actually match up the [latitude and longitude] coordinates to all the structures in the state. Every building, every house, every store, every church, we have the latitude and longitude of where they are on this earth. … And we have a picture, we actually take a photograph of every structure in the state. …

We just finished the geo-coding project this year. It took us that long because of the sporadic funding we were getting along the way, but the whole state has been done.

In 2004, we received our first [call from a computer], where someone uses their computer to make a 911 call. When that happened, it was a mother in Tiverton, she had triplets and one of the babies was ill, so we sent help right away, naturally. But it was brought to my attention by my supervisor that we had received no caller information. … So, [after meeting with technicians], within three months we were the first state to be able to get the location of the device being used to make a call from a computer, what’s called a Voice-Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) call.

PBN: What other improvements have taken place?

LABELLE: In 2005, I saw this technology called pictometry at a conference. This is a company that flies at 40-degree angles and they have six cameras in the belly of the plane, and they provide what they call oblique images, so we can see every structure, every street, every lake, every pond, the ocean, whatever exists on earth, we can see at these various angles.

So we can actually measure, for example, how high a house might be, how far away the nearest hydrant is or, if there were a hostage situation, we can tell the local authorities where to put the command center. … We started in 2005 with four communities, Providence, Cranston, Warwick and Newport, to get a feel for it … and then just this past year, I got a Homeland Security grant [for $500,000] to do the whole state. … Several weeks ago, I was able to give the hard drives of the images in every community to each of the 39 cities and towns.

Then in 2005, also, we entered into an agreement with the U.S. Coast Guard whereby we would send them any waterborne incidents. … We tell people, if you’re going out on a boat, take your cell phone, it’s better than a marine radio because we get the latitude and longitude. We give that to the Coast Guard and that’s like giving them an address in the ocean. …

In 2007, I got a hold of the R.I. Department of Transportation, the transportation operations center, and we’re the first state agency to hook up to their cameras. So there [are] 90 or so cameras in the state … and we see – live – all highways covered by cameras. •

INTERVIEW

Raymond LaBelle

POSITION: Associate director of the R.I. Enhanced-911 Uniform Emergency Telephone System

BACKGROUND: He has been in charge of the state’s E-911 system since 2000, previously serving as executive director of the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency for more than eight years. Before then, he worked in the private sector in advertising and real estate development.

EDUCATION: B.A. in business, Providence College, 1962; M.A. in education from the

University of Rhode Island, 1971.

FIRST JOB: As a teenager, he worked as a paperboy in South Providence.

RESIDENCE: North Providence

AGE: 67