If you’ve ever picked up the phone to call 9-1-1, you or someone else probably needed help. Badly. And you probably assumed that after dialing those three numbers, help would come screeching around the corner, lights and sirens blaring.
Residents of East and West Oakland say that depends on where you live. In a special hour-long KALW documentary, “The Race to an Emergency” host Martina Castro and reporter Ali Budner trace the path of a 9-1-1 call in Oakland: from the dispatchers to the emergency responders. And they consider how geographics and demographics figure into a crisis that has been brewing in Oakland for decades.
Listen to the documentary here, and for more information, links to sources, photos and data maps, please visit the documentary website, TheRaceToAnEmergency.org.
