Emergency Woes

911 response times slower in Austin as population increases

The number of 911 calls answered within 10 seconds has dropped to 92 percent.

FotoKanal.com

KVUE — Austin’s 911 Call Center, based out of the Combined Transportation, Emergency and Communications Center in North Austin is becoming increasingly flooded with emergency calls.

“As the city continues to annex additional properties and the city grows, the call volumes grow,” said Emergency Communications Manager Marcia Brooks.

However, Brooks said for the past decade, even though the city has grown, they’ve had the exact same number of 911 operators.

“We have not had a net increase in our call taker population in over 10 years," she said.

According to the city’s website, 687,000 people lived in Austin in 2003. In 2013, that number jumped to 842,000. That's an increase of 155,000 people. So why no additional 911 operators? Brooks says it's because of budget constraints.

“Those individuals who control the budget had to make some really tough decisions," she said.

Brooks said she's requested more funding from the City each of the past five years, and while it did step in to make up for an expired grant in 2011, there's been no additional money to add more operators.

“I feel terrible that any citizen has to wait in order to get a 911 call answered,” she said.

The number of 911 calls answered within 10 seconds has dropped from 96 percent in 2012, to 92 percent in 2013.

That’s still above the national average of 90 percent, but Brooks said she wants all calls to be answered within 10 seconds or less.

“I have two small children, so I cringe when I look at these numbers," she said.

Additionally, Brooks said of the 72,000 calls they receive every month, on average, 1.3 percent of callers have to wait more than a minute to talk to an operator.

There are a total of 100 operators at the 911 call center. That's 100 people to serve nearly one million citizens 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The Austin City Council will decide on the emergency center's budget this September.

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Austinite who kayaked 86 miles with one arm has Texas Book Fest debut

Photo by Daniel Cavazos

Avrel Seale is discussing his post-stroke kayaking expedition at the festival on November 16.

This year’s Texas Book Festival features more than 275 authors who have accomplished amazing things. But only one of them rowed nearly 90 miles down the Nueces River with one arm. (We think.)

Author of The River Nuts Avrel Seale is making his Texas Book Festival debut on November 16, and participating in the 4 pm panel "Memoirs of Adventure & Adversity Exploring Nature" in the Capitol Auditorium. He’ll talk about his feat of physical and mental endurance in a session alongside author Kevin Fadarko (A Walk in the Park) and moderated by outdoor journalist Pamela LeBlanc.

For all intents and purposes, January 19, 2018, was just another ordinary Friday for 50-year old author Seale. The writer and editor for the University of Texas' Marketing and Communications team was in his office on The Drag when he was hit with a devastating hemorrhagic stroke.

"My coworkers called an ambulance, which took me to Seton Main," says Seale. "I had emergency brain surgery that night that probably saved my life."

Avrel Seale Austin author Thankfully, Seale's story includes help from friends along the way.Photo by Daniel Cavazos

The stroke left Seale partially paralyzed on the right side of his body, with his right arm completely immobile. After two years of rehab and physical therapy — and still with just one working arm — Seale decided to undergo one of his biggest self-made challenges: attempting to kayak an 86-mile stretch of the Nueces River with lifelong friend Wade Walker in tow.

Seale's extensive journaling of the adventure would later become his 11th book, The River Nuts. The 182-page story didn’t just chronicle Seale and Walker's voyage down the South Texas river, but also covered the preparation for the journey in great detail.

"I had always wanted to. I thought it would be fun," explains Seale. "The stroke just forced me to find a different way."

Seale and Walker accomplished something that many others have in the past. Kayaking a river to the sea was not a groundbreaking idea, but few people — if any — had done it facing the same challenges as Seale did.

Avrel Seale Austin author with Wade Walker Avrel Seale and his rowing partner Wade Walker.Photo by Kirstin Seale

Someone who has had a dominant hand in a cast can understand how the immediate shift could test one’s patience. Even though most of the journey was spent cruising downstream — not to mention having someone else in the kayak doing the lion’s share of the work — there was quite a bit more to the experience than a spectator might expect.

From pulling up rudders to adjusting foot pedals that help propel the craft, using his functioning arm to man an oar, and helping set up camp each night, Seale started facing difficulties shortly after their launch. Sometimes he was his own worst enemy.

"I had mistakenly reversed the left and right pedal arms for both pedal drives when we first assembled the kayak months earlier,” he explains. “This led to us stripping the threads and losing one pedal completely."

In addition to the rigorous physical demand on the writer, he also faced mental roadblocks.

"The biggest mental challenge was the lead-up to the trip, both the painstaking planning and the very real fear of dying,” he says “By the time we got on the water, that stress and fear lifted, and it was all about making the most of a beautiful experience."

Avrel Seale Austin author Seale's stroke couldn't keep him from nature.Photo by Daniel Cavazos

Published by TCU press in the fall of 2023, The River Nuts came out after that year's submission deadline for the Texas Book Festival. Since then he’s also written The Hewetts: An American Saga in the Age of Vaudeville, Circuses, and Bands, a wild historical account spanning four generations of a family of self-made entertainers.

"I've written 12 books over the last 25 years, and this is definitely the highlight of my career so far," he points out. "Hopefully it will open even more doors for me. I'm tickled to death."

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