Overwhelmed and understaffed, the 911 call center for New Orleans police has consistently failed to meet national standards for prompt responses for more than a year, and the trouble has only grown worse this month, police and communications officials admitted Wednesday at a hearing of the City Council’s public safety committee.
As of Monday, more than one in 10 emergency calls in March went unanswered within 40 seconds, a category deemed “unacceptable.” Including those, more than 15 percent of 911 calls took longer than 20 seconds to pick up.