Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico Governments
Reach Agreement on 9-1-1 Protocol

Governor John P. de Jongh, Jr. said Monday that officials of the governments of the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, have formalized an agreement that establishes a protocol for re-routing 9-1-1 calls originating from the territory but picked up by Puerto Rico’s emergency system.

“Last week, V.I. Territorial Emergency Management Agency Director Mark A. Walters, VITEMA Deputy Director for Operations Noel Smith, Bureau of Information Technology Acting Director Paul Arnold Jr., and Chan Holder, a 9-1-1 Emergency Communications Center supervisor, traveled to Puerto Rico to meet with the island’s 9-1-1 emergency system director and management team. After receiving a presentation on the call center operations there, officials opened discussions to address the needs of Virgin Islands residents whose wireless 9-1-1calls are picked up in Puerto Rico,” de Jongh said. 

According to Walters, the Virgin Islands-Puerto Rico protocol agreement sets guidelines for Puerto Rico dispatchers to manage wireless 9-1-1 emergency calls originating from the Virgin Islands and procedures to transfer them back to the territory’s Emergency Communications Centers on St. Thomas or St. Croix, including staying on the line until a V.I. emergency operator answers the re-routed call.

The contact numbers for the Virgin Islands’ Emergency Communications Centers were added to Puerto Rico’s computer-aided dispatch, a computerized system from which dispatchers route all their calls. The new protocol was tested several times and worked, Director Walters said. “In testing the protocol, the territory’s Emergency Communications Centers were also inundated with several simultaneous calls from Puerto Rico’s call center to ensure multiples calls could go through.” Walters added that the issue of wireless 9-1-1 calls being picked up by Puerto Rico’s call center lies with wireless providers.

Various wireless providers in the territory have left pockets of remote areas without coverage. Cell phone customers making 9-1-1 calls from these remote areas sometimes reach a wireless provider’s tower in Puerto Rico. The calls are routed to Puerto Rico’s 9-1-1 emergency system instead of getting one of the territory’s emergency communications centers.

“While it is an issue with the wireless provider, the V.I. government has been committed to doing all it can to address the problem,” Walters said. “We want to ensure all of our residents receive emergency assistance when needed.”

The de Jongh Administration has spent the past year and a half modernizing the territory’s 9-1-1 emergency system, activating two new call centers – one in each district – within the last four months.

To update the territory’s 9-1-1 emergency system, the de Jongh Administration also erected radio communications towers to interconnect all of the territory’s locations, improved radios and communication systems equipment for first responders, required emergency operators to meet and perform to current industry standards and built and equipped the call centers.

Each center is capable of backing each other up in case of an outage and operators can now directly dispatch Police, Fire, and Emergency Medical Services responders and when required, remain on the line, providing immediate pre-arrival medical emergency assistance.

“The protocol agreement is a step in the right direction in ensuring emergency needs of every resident and visitor are covered, particularly in those remote areas,” de Jongh said, adding, that the protocol agreement also shows how two Caribbean islands can work together to quickly find solutions for a common good.

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Related Audio:

• VITEMA Director Walters Comments on the Agreement .mp3 (2 MB)