NAPLES, Fla. — When an emergency happens in Collier County, Florida, the 911 calls go to one of the most high-tech communications centers in the U.S., where callers can send text and video from the scene to dispatchers.
Moving to what’s known as an NG911 — or Next Generation 911 — system is a journey Sheriff Kevin Rambosk and Bob Finney, the county’s director of communication, have been on for much of the past decade.
It’s a long way from Feb. 16, 1968, when Alabama’s then-House Speaker Rankin Fite made the nation’s first 911 call in Haleyville, Alabama, on a bright red, rotary-style landline telephone. That ceremonial call came just 35 days after AT&T announced plans to use 911 as a nationwide emergency number.
Today, most calls to 911 originate with cellphones, with dispatchers in upgraded centers using geo tracking to get accurate geographic locations from callers…