NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Amid a staffing shortage at Norfolk’s 911 call center, Norfolk Police and Norfolk Fire-Rescue were dispatched to more than 273,000 calls for service in 2023, at an average of 750 calls per day, according to the Norfolk Department of Emergency Preparedness and Response.
Norfolk Police were dispatched to 214,325 calls last year, up from 204,761 in 2022, while Norfolk Fire-Rescue were dispatched to 59,293 calls last year, versus 57,965 in 2022.
For December, dispatched calls in Norfolk were down from the same period in 2022.
There were nearly 16,000 dispatched calls for service for Norfolk Police in December and nearly 4,500 for Norfolk Fire-Rescue, according to the Norfolk Department of Emergency Preparedness and Response.
During the same period in 2022, there were more than 17,000 dispatched calls for Norfolk Police and nearly 5,200 for Norfolk Fire-Rescue.
The Southside cities of Norfolk, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Virginia Beach and Portsmouth recently entered a 911 call center agreement in an effort to boost efficiency and speed up response times.
Jim Redick, Norfolk’s Director of Emergency Preparedness and Response, said in December that he is aware of long delays in answering calls at the city’s 911 call center. The goal, he said, is to be able to answer 90% of the public’s calls in less than 15 seconds, but noted they had been answering a little more than 50% of calls in that timeframe.
The big reason?
A lack of staffing.
He said last month the city has 26 vacancies and is 62% staffed at its 911 call center that he noted had the third-highest call volume in Virginia.
