ATTENTION, RESIDENTS & BUSINESS OWNERS: 911 Needs Your Help

AALYCIA ROSSON

Director, Perry County 911

As you all know, technology is amazing and has provided us with options we once didn’t have in regards to telephone calls. TDS has been our only phone provider in Perry County for years, with cell carriers being your only other option. Now we have VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocols) capabilities such as MLConnect, TN Wireless, and other carriers.

If you have been through the transition, you know that sometimes you have the option to “port” or keep your current phone number you have had for the last several years (or your whole life).

You probably didn’t know that when you obtained phone service with TDS, that was one way we were able to input your information into our system. For example: name of homeowner(s) at your address, and contact phone number, which is exactly what you want in the event of an emergency at that location.

What you also may not know is that now, if you swap phone providers, they only show to “disconnect” or “delete” you from their system, which generally means we take you out of our system.

There are a number of instances that an officer or any responder could ask us to reach out to that residence to notify them of something or if they are trying to locate someone. We may have that information or we may not.

Another issue is if you rent, we may only show who owns the rental. If you don’t notify us, we can’t possibly know.

This is also true if you use an alarm company. They ask us to contact the “Keyholder”; we may or may not have that information if you have never provided it to us.

If you have a gate around your property but you’ve never shared with 911 the code to access it, in the event of an emergency we would not be able to help our responders get in.

I am telling you all of this in hopes that you will help us help you. Any information you share with us (address, phone numbers, gate codes, security codes, etc.) will be used only in the event emergency services are needed by you or someone at your location. This has affected businesses as well as residents.

Elecia Tucker does all of the information updates for us at 911, and she has worked diligently with different vendors to try to avoid this from happening. However, I personally feel like due to the competitive nature from all the new companies, it seems it is going to be up to you all to work with us to ensure your information is up to date.

If you have recently changed your contact information, phone number, address, if you rent, and you don’t know 100% that we have the correct information, I am asking that you please use one of the following options to do so.

1. You may email Elecia directly at 911asstdirector@perrycountytn.gov;
2. You can mail in to Perry County 911, ATTN: Elecia Tucker, PO Box 724, Linden, TN 37096;
3. You can text it to 911 directly at 931-279-1374, ATTN- Elecia Tucker.

I want this to be as convenient as possible, but please do not call 911 to send in the information. We do not want to tie up phone lines, causing us to miss someone’s emergency during this process.

Please help spread the word. Thank you for your help.