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When to call 311 instead of 911 during Mardi Gras in New Orleans

Heading into the full swing of Mardi Gras, the City of New Orleans EMS only wants people to call 911 in a case of a life-threatening emergency.

NEW ORLEANS — It’s been two years since the bright parade lights lit up the St. Charles avenue sky. A moment Rick Roniger said he and his crew of 30 proud neutral-ground side, parade watching family has been waiting for.

But, with crime the way it is in the city, Roniger said he’s sticking to the day parades.

“None of us are coming to the nighttime parades, just for the concern of carjacking or even if not carjacking just that you go back to your car and have a broken window,” Roniger said.

Two very distinct circumstances.

Heading into the full swing of Mardi Gras, the City of New Orleans EMS only wants people to call 911 in case of a life-threatening emergency.

The city’s 311 line is what they want people to use in instances such as noise complaints, blocked driveways or even car theft and burglary.

Tyrell Morris, the executive director of the Orleans Parish Communication District, said a carjacking would qualify as a “life-threatening emergency.”

A call that should be made to 911.

“The solvability the apprehension probability is high and also those are incidents in progress," Morris said. "Having a first responder on the ground gives us the ability to bring some mitigating measures to prevent any additional harm to our people."

Calls into 311 are for all other non-life-threatening emergencies.

"Things that have happened in the past, so the emergency has kind of subsided," Morris said. "Of course, you still want to know about it so we can provide the appropriate response."

Morris said he wants to assure people that a non-life-threatening call into 311 will be treated with the same level of urgency as that same call into 911.

He said the emergency type determination is made based on a series of questions from the call operators.

“Callers should remain calm answer all the questions that the call takers ask so that we can properly assign a priority to the incident. Also, what is really important to us is location,” Morris said. That allows them to follow crime trends in real-time.

So, in the instance of what we saw when multiple cars were broken into during Chewbacchus, Morris said if all of those drivers would have called into 311 to report the individual incidents, officials would know to escalate to a higher priority.

“It’s our job to make sure we send the right people to the right place at the right time,” Morris said.

As for Roniger, he said he hopes he can get through the season without having to make that call either way.

Trying to keep from looking over his shoulder, by keeping his focus on the few parades he will get to experience.

“We will be here and we will enjoy them and it changes subtly because we won’t be here for nighttime parades just because of the concern, but that aside we are here to have family fun,” Roniger said.

Morris says, as of today, the OPCD has moved into level 2 staffing increasing staffing at the 911 call center and 311 staff by 50 percent.

And at 5 p.m. Friday night, OPCD began operation of their special Mardi Gras Operation Center.

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