Quick, call 911!

On the news the other morning came the news that there was a sonic boom out in Nevada, caused by a meteor shower.  I believe in meteor showers, because no one wants a dirty, stinky meteor hanging around.  Better they be clean before they reach earth.  But it made a large noise.  Boom! 

And so people called 911, flooding the lines and potentially making someone who had a legitimate emergency get a busy signal.

It's not just because I used to work there that I wonder why people call 911 for everything. I could tell you thousands of times people called for directions to a house for sale that they couldn't find...to find out who was Andrew Johnson's vice president (no one) or to report hearing a lot of sirens in their area...to ask if schools were closed because of the 1/16th inch of snow on the grass...

And then there would always be someone at the scene of a big crash who would call 911 to report it, and you could hear the sirens of arriving emergency vehicles as soon as the phone was answered, and you wonder, if you're there, and you hear sirens, don't you figure someone already called?

Look! Up in the sky!

911 is great for earthbound emergencies.  No municipality that I know of operates an Air Force, so why call 911 to report a sonic boom?  And I remember a Christmas day some years back when someone from the richest part of our county called because her neighbor had gotten a jet-pack as a gift and was flying around in the neighborhood.  She wanted the police to come out and...do what?  He wasn't driving a vehicle.  I guess he was sort of a low-orbit space pedestrian, but we have no laws governing that.

So remember, call 911 when you want police, fire or EMS assistance.   On earth.