911, Do you have an emergency?

Woken up at 3:00 in the morning. Loud banging on my door. "Open up, Sheriff's department!"

OK, what did I do. Did a horse get out? Did someone come on my property? Run through a fence?

"Just a minute."

I stumble through my house looking for my robe, and after a few minutes, I decide what the heck, I was sleeping in sweatshirt and sweatpants. That hides everything. I go to the front door. No one is there. I now realize that he is at the back door. My dog is barking, and I am trying to calm her down. I go to the back door.

The Sheriff's Deputy is there with a flashlight shining in my face. He tells me the call center had a 911 call/hangup from this location. All they have now is a busy signal. They had to check it out and make sure everything alright.

Yes.

OK, the weather is wet. The phone has been shorting out during a rainstorm. I tell him that the phone has been ringing and no one is there. It was doing that the last rainstorm and I noticed it happening tonight, too.

I ask him if he could give me a light, and I would check the box right now. I yanked the phone out of the bedroom, and a phone cord. We go outside, and I forgot to bring a screwdriver to open the interface box. He uses a knife. I mention that the knife looked like it could do some damage. He says it could, but he is very happy to use it in this manner, and not in a defensive manner.

The box is opened, and I unplug the cord. I insert my cord, and I have a clean dial tone. Darn it, the problem is in my end. I tell him thanks, and I will see the phone is repaired as soon as possible.

This morning, I was checking my system. I have dial tone in the house, at the cordless phone. The corded phone in my bedroom is dead. OK, so I go outside, and there it is. The line to my bedroom is broken, and the live end, the one still attached to the interface box, is lying in wet soil. Water being a conductor, will short out and give a false signal to the phone company. I disconnected that line and that should solve the problem, until it dries up enough for me to crawl under and finish the hook up to the far end of the trailer, then I can rewire the bedroom jack.

Now how did it dial 911?