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Dispatcher at work at 911 center

911 problems Heather Holeman TOPEKA, Kan., Feb. 18 - If you had an emergency, you would probably dial 9-1-1.

But what if your call didnt go through? It happens. In fact, Shawnee County had more phone outages last year than any other Kansas county.

Now Southwestern Bell, Sprint and Shawnee County are teaming up to keep residents safe. Theyre mailing out notices on what to do if you have an emergency during a phone outage. Assistant 911 Director Kevin Drain says It could be a matter of life and death. They need to know where their fire stations are...in the event that we didnt have phone service and we did have wide-spread outage, they would need to go to their fire station for help.

Even if your closest station isnt manned 24-hours a day, police will notify firefighters when an outage occurs.

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), February 18, 2000