This is another sign that Los Angeles has collapsed. Water hydrants that have no water, so the Palisades can burn. Police that must protect criminals from foreign countries, while you become a victim. Failed schools, bad roads, high taxes. Not enough cops or firefighters. To run the city in the ground, the people elected a Marxist Mayor.
“So why are taxpayers in California experiencing longer wait times when calling 911?
As 911 response times continue to climb, we’re facing a silent crisis—one that poses a serious but largely overlooked public health threat.
Here’s the thing: Not all 911 calls are treated the same. In Los Angeles, calls are often rerouted to non-emergency lines if dispatchers determine they’re not life-threatening — leaving some callers waiting 30 minutes to over an hour before help arrives.
In fact, they’ve been steadily increasing across the board since 2016. Back then, emergency response times averaged about five and a half minutes. Today, people are waiting an entire minute longer on average.”
Think you are safe in Los Angeles? You must be smoking expensive good stuff, too mellow to care.
Los Angeles’ 911 System Is Failing: The Underreported Crisis Plaguing Californians
By Chris Bertman, RedState, 6/3/25 https://redstate.com/chris-bertman/2025/06/03/increasing-911-wait-times-threaten-los-angeles-safety-n2189995
Forget about how much you hate taxes.
It’s reasonable to expect that we get what our taxes are paying for — especially when it comes to community services that require competence and efficiency, as they can directly affect our safety.
So why are taxpayers in California experiencing longer wait times when calling 911?
As 911 response times continue to climb, we’re facing a silent crisis—one that poses a serious but largely overlooked public health threat.
Here’s the thing: Not all 911 calls are treated the same. In Los Angeles, calls are often rerouted to non-emergency lines if dispatchers determine they’re not life-threatening — leaving some callers waiting 30 minutes to over an hour before help arrives.
In fact, they’ve been steadily increasing across the board since 2016. Back then, emergency response times averaged about five and a half minutes. Today, people are waiting an entire minute longer on average.
In theory, this makes sense as some emergency calls are more urgent than others. But the implementation seems to be more about playing whack-a-mole rather than making the system more efficient.
In a true emergency, every precious second delayed can mean the difference between life and death. Exigent circumstances tend to escalate if not handled promptly.
Los Angeles isn’t alone. Recently, reports from San Diego showed emergency services only answered 66.2% of 911 calls within 15 seconds, far below the National Emergency Number Association‘s (NENA) 90% standard.
As of May, Los Angeles receives about 6,000 emergency calls daily, while the city’s 911 dispatch center has about 162 operator vacancies. The math doesn’t seem to add up.
In January, Callers reported wait times over an hour during January’s Palisades fire, an avoidable disaster, which saw emergency services strained because of infrastructure damage and being overloaded.
This isn’t the first time Los Angelenos have been left in the dust during an unprecedented disaster. Emergency services have previously been strained during the 1994 Northridge earthquake due to overloaded systems and infrastructure damage.
FireStatLA reports an average of 1-minute, 6-second 911 call processing time, a 54-second turnout time, and a 5-minute, 22-second travel time. That leaves an average operational response time of about 7 minutes and 36 seconds for emergency services. This is an average, of course, and doesn’t take into account the type of call, nor does it disclose whether the call was rerouted.
Imagine someone breaks into your home, and you call 911. You could be waiting more than seven minutes for help to arrive. You don’t know if the intruder is armed. You don’t know their intentions. How does a dispatcher determine whether your call is urgent enough for an immediate response?
And this is California we’re talking about — a state which is notoriously hostile towards self-defense and leaves Californians even more dependent on emergency services when in danger.
Although wait times for emergency services have been on a steady decline, California’s “next generation” 911 system (NGA 911) is already not trusted by engineers. NGA 911 is a statewide initiative to modernize California’s emergency calling network, though it has been delayed for years over technical difficulties.
In other words, we have a long-standing traditional 911 call system that is strained by staff shortages and budget cuts, along with a new 911 system that has been delayed for years and isn’t trusted by the people developing it.
When lives are on the line, delay is deadly. Californians deserve a 911 system that works when they need it most — not one hampered by budget gaps, technical failures, and staff shortages. If emergency services are the most critical function our tax dollars support, it’s time California started treating them like it.
