On May 6, 2008, the Minneapolis 911 Center was awarded the 911 Outstanding Call Center Award, a national award presented by the E9-1-1 Institute in Washington, D.C. The Minneapolis 911 Center was honored for its work during the collapse of the I-35W Bridge.
The Minneapolis 911 Center was a key part of the emergency response to the bridge collapse. During the first two hours after the collapse, the center received 505 emergency calls, including 51 from the scene of the bridge collapse. Although this was three times the normal call volume, the 911 Center was able to communicate seamlessly with emergency organizations from the City of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, responding with remarkable speed and professionalism.
When the bridge collapsed at 6 p.m. on Aug. 1, 2007, there were 13 operators and dispatchers on duty in the 911 Center. Following the collapse, many off-duty employees came back to work to help.
As the emergency response unfolded at the bridge scene, the 911 center helped process 113,000 radio transmissions on the regional 800 MHz trunked radio system that connected emergency responders. Even though there were tens of thousands of transmissions, only one high-priority transmission received a busy signal in the first six hours of the incident.