Ring. Ring.
"Howard County 911."
"I need a police officer. There's a man banging on my door. His brother just beat up my son."
"Do you know him?"
"No. He just busted into my house. He busted the whole deadbolt off the door. Where are the police?"
"They're right around the corner."
"He said he was going to shoot me, ma'am."
This was just one of hundreds of calls received during a fairly typical 12-hour shift one day last week at Howard County's 911 nerve center, the county's Emergency Communications Center in the basement of the George Howard Building in Ellicott City.
In the center, three to five telephone operators field emergency and nonemergency calls for police and fire assistance. Dispatch operators -- sitting in two nearby rooms -- receive reports of these same calls by computer and relay them to police officers and firefighters.
The center does not keep track of the total number of incoming PTC calls. But on average, county police and fire officials say, they respond toabout 285 reports a day -- or about one response a day for every 750 residents.
Calls unrelated to police and fire assistance also come through the center's separate, nonemergency lines to the operators. And then there are the ones where callers hang up, wrong numbers and crank calls.
"It really is unbelievable the calls we get in here, especially when we have a full moon," said operator Lou Ann Fowler, awaiting her next call.
During this 12-hour day -- day shifts last from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. -- calls run the gamut from nonemergency to life-threatening, from comic to tragic.
"Howard County 911," answers another operator, Kathy Smith.
"Could I get an ambulance?"
"What's the problem?"
"My sister. She can't breathe," a man says with a panic-stricken voice. "She's having a chronic asthma attack."
"We'll get somebody there," Ms. Smith says.
As the call ends, one of the lights above the 911 center's desks starts flashing. These lights signal the types of calls waiting: emergency or nonemergency.
A white light flashes for nonemergency calls on hold. An amber light for one or two emergency calls on hold. A red light for three or more emergency calls on hold.
"Communications, Smith," the operator says, prompting the white light to turn off.
"Somebody's playing their music so loud, I can hear it all the way over here where I am. I mean it's going boom-dee! boom-dee! boom!"
Ms. Smith calls up a police incident report form on her computer screen to record the information and pass it by computer to the police dispatch operators in the room behind her.
Ms. Smith asks for the caller's location, but she already knows it.
The 911 operators have computer screens that detail addresses and telephone numbers of incoming calls. They still ask for addresses and telephone numbers to check the computer and to record the location of the incident -- if it differs from the caller's.
From her computer, she also can access driver's license numbers all over the country and check if a person is wanted by the police.
But the operators spend most of their time talking to county residents, distressed or not.
"Howard County 911."
"Do you have a listing for GMAC in Columbia."
"You have 911. You need 411."
Operators say such wrong numbers are one of their biggest problems.
If it's not callers in search of telephone information, it's calls to911 instead of to the center's nonemergency lines -- either 313-2929 or 313-2200.
"We try to bring it to people's attention," said John Hampton, communications center chief. "I don't think they know we have a nonemergency line."
The county used to tell residents to call 911 for both emergency and nonemergency calls that required police or firefighter assistance. But for the past two years, the communications center has urged them to call 911 for emergencies only, Mr. Hampton says.
But "every person has their own idea of what an emergency is," said operator Janet Saunders.
Operators often try to ease the tension of their repeated exposureto tragedy at the other end of the line with jokes.
"It starts to depress you after a while," Ms. Saunders said. "The kid calls bother me a lot."
Then one more call comes. "Communications, Saunders."
"I have a child who would like to speak to a police officer," a school worker says. "He's afraid of abuse at home. He's afraid his father's going to beat him. He says he wants some protection."
A police officer was dispatched immediately -- to hear another sad story unfold.
It's late afternoon already, toward the end of the 12-hour shift. As the day wears on, the 911 operators have become visibly tired, even frazzled.
"It's time for my blood pressure pills," Ms. Fowler said. "We all have high blood pressure around here."
Ring. Ring.
"Communications, Fowler."
"This is Channel 7 [news]. Anything going on today?"
"Nope."
Click.