By JOSEPH KELLARD
That¹s the question Barbra Rubin posed after she used her cell phone to call the police emergency number and, Rubin said, the operator had not heard of Island Park.
At the time ‹ earlier this summer ‹ Rubin was parked near the train station in the village and was unnerved by some men who were hanging around the area. ³It was fortunate for me that I didn¹t need the police for an emergency,² Rubin said. ³They eventually came and found me, but to have an operator say, ŒI don¹t know where that is. Is that in Long Beach?¹ ‹ that is a problem.²
When Rubin told her tale around town, she found that a few other Island Parkers had run into similar problems with 911, and discovered that the police department identifies a certain area of Island Park as ³North Long Beach.²
³I dread to think that, at some point, that somebody who is in desperate need is going to call,² Rubin said, ³and someone on the other side is going to end up saying, ŒWhere is Island Park?¹ while the caller has been raped, shot, or whatever, and has to explain to that person, ŒNo, it¹s not Long Beach,¹ when every second is critical.²
Rubin filed a formal complaint with police and contacted local officials, including Mayor Jim Ruzicka and Nassau County Legislator Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside) to see if they could help. When Toback investigated the incident, he found that what is usually a one-minute call to the operator to dispatch police turned into a four-minute call, though police did arrive at the scene in five minutes.
³Apparently there was some confusion, because when Mrs. Rubin said she was at the Island Park train station, it came up in our computer dispatch system as ŒStation Plaza,¹ and she kept saying Long Beach Road, and that resulted in about three minutes of confusion,² said Toback.
Toback noted that experiences like Rubin¹s are something the police department is looking to address on various levels.
Lt. Kevin Smith, a Nassau County police spokesman, said that when callers dial 911 from a home or business phone, their address automatically appears to the operator, and confusion usually arises when people call from a cell phone while on the road and are uncertain of their whereabouts.
³The caller sometimes doesn¹t know exactly where they are, or they may be on the boundary of two towns,² Smith explained. ³When people call up, they don¹t always get all the facts correctly. In a tense moment, people place calls and get a little unnerved and confused.²
Smith said that when people call from a road that runs through several towns, such as Hempstead Turnpike, they may be unsure exactly what town they are in, and the operator will ask for a cross street to narrow down their location. He said that geography is a large part of 911 operators¹ training, and they are expected to know the county well, although there are times when they may not know that a particular area, such as Harbor Isle, is part of a particular town. ³But generally, we don¹t have much of an issue assigning the right person to find an address,² Smith said.
Police department officials are overhauling and upgrading their communications system, and since Rubin¹s call have installed a computer dispatch system with which incidents like hers will be avoided. ³For instance, you can say, ŒI¹m at the Oceanside train station,¹ but you can be on Anchor Avenue on the south side or on Weidner Avenue on the north side,² Toback explained. ³In Baldwin, the train station is almost a half-mile long. In the new computer dispatch system, issues like that will be more easily resolved.²
Rubin said that a police officer she spoke with said that the new communications system will also no longer designate a section of Island Park, along Austin Boulevard and the Barnum Isle area, as ³North Long Beach.²
Smith said that some areas within certain towns are designated as part of those towns because of their postal addresses. ³I know that in the Lakeview area, some of the addresses there are actually listed as Rockville Centre, and that¹s how it will come up on our system when people call 911,² Smith said. ³But we can determine exactly where residents are calling from, but people calling on cell phones obviously presents a problem.²
A manager at the Island Park Post Office said she had no clue why Island Park is sometimes identified as North Long Beach. ³We at the postal service don¹t do that,² she said. ³We¹re Island Park in Barnum Isle, Harbor Isle and the village. They¹re all 11558 zip code.²
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
