Vulnerability of the Public Safety System: Evidence from Micro-Shocks

The 911 system, a vital component of public safety, responds to over 210 million emergency calls each year. We examine the effect of small exogenous public health stressors – pollen emissions – on the operation of the 911 call system in Seattle, Washington. Leveraging daily variation in pollen levels, we evaluate pollen’s impact on the volume of 911 calls. We find that a 100% increase in pollen levels – the modal day-over-day variation we observe in our data – results in six additional 911 calls per day. We further show that elevated pollen levels influence the quality of emergency and non-emergency response. The 911 system responds to increased strain by prioritizing more urgent calls – and as a result, increasing response time to non-urgent calls. Though all calls are connected to a dispatcher, there are increased missed connections – canceled emergency response, missing records of response, and false reports. Despite the prioritization of urgent calls, these additional daily calls lead to reallocation of resources in ways that potentially impede service quality. Thus, our findings suggest that common and small shocks may lead to under-provision of valuable services to communities across the U.S.