Nearly 1 in 4 Columbia-Richland 911 calls ended before answer in 2025. What to know

More than 84,400 emergency calls to the Columbia-Richland 911 Communications Center ended before an operator picked up last year. Residents who experienced medical emergencies, intruders and threats say the failures have shattered their trust in the system.

FULL STORY: ‘Just no one picked up’: 23% of Columbia-Richland 911 calls disconnected before answer in 2025

Here are key takeaways:

• Nearly 23% of 911 calls to the Columbia-Richland Communications Center were abandoned in 2025, with callers waiting an average of 24 seconds before hanging up — well beyond national standards that call for answers within 15 to 20 seconds.
• Nicholas Sipe’s family called 911 “at least” 10 times during his diabetic emergency in December before anyone answered. “It’s just absolute incompetence,” said Sipe, 80, who wrote local officials but said he received no response.
• Salon owner Neka Dickerson called three or four times when a belligerent man refused to leave her business. “That phone rung, rung, rung, rung, rung,” she said. “To me, it’s like we were helpless.” She now leaves work in groups: “We know we can’t call 911.”
• Hope Jefferson said she called 911 six times after spotting an intruder on her home security camera. When an operator finally answered and cited high call volume, Jefferson was unconvinced: “If the intruder … had a weapon, I would have been dead long before 911 answered the phone.”
• The call center had 22 open positions out of 102 as of early May — a 21.5% vacancy rate. Salaries for telecommunicators range from $39,024 to $48,780, and burnout has surpassed hiring as the top workforce issue nationally, according to a NENA survey.
• Columbia Assistant City Manager Henry Simons called the rate unacceptable but said the department is “getting it right” on most calls. Mayor Daniel Rickenmann pledged action: “At the end of the day, to me it doesn’t matter if it’s 20% or 1%, we want to try to be at 100%.”
• Richland County Council Chair Jesica Mackey declined to comment when presented with the findings, saying, “I don’t have anything to add on this story at this time.”
• About 76% of abandoned calls were later “serviced” through callbacks or repeat connections within an hour, but records don’t show how quickly.
• Nearly 60% of the 887,000-plus calls handled last year were non-emergencies answered by the same operators.

The summary points above were compiled with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists. The full story in the link at top was reported, written and edited entirely by journalists.