Who to Call in the Des Moines Metro

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Call 911 for anything that is happening right now and threatens someone’s life, safety, or property: a fire, a crime in progress, a car crash with injuries, someone who can’t breathe, a break-in happening at this moment. Iowa’s 911 system routes your call based on your location to the correct local dispatch center automatically — you don’t need to know which city or county you’re standing in. If you’re not sure whether something rises to that level, call anyway and let the dispatcher make the call. That’s their job, and it’s a better outcome than hesitating on something that turns out to matter.

Don’t call 911 for a parked car blocking your driveway, a noise complaint from three nights ago, a question about your water bill, or “is this an emergency?” questions in general. Every one of those has its own number below, and every minute a dispatcher spends on a non-emergency is a minute they’re not answering for someone who’s actually in trouble. If you’re genuinely unsure whether something is urgent but not life-threatening — a suspicious person lingering on your block, a car that’s been abandoned for days — that’s exactly what the non-emergency police lines in the next section are for.

If you’d rather match your exact problem to a number than read the full guide, start here. Every scenario below links to the fuller section further down.

Here’s the part that trips people up: most of the Des Moines metro doesn’t dispatch its own 911 calls independently. Polk County runs a combined Emergency Communications Center that handles non-emergency dispatch for the Polk County Sheriff’s Office and for several suburb police departments that contract with the county rather than running their own dispatch center — Ankeny, Grimes, Polk City, and Bondurant all route through the same Polk County non-emergency line. Separately, a cluster of west-metro suburbs — West Des Moines, Clive, Urbandale, Windsor Heights, Waukee, and Norwalk — share a different consolidated dispatch line for police and fire non-emergency calls. Des Moines proper, Johnston, Altoona, Pleasant Hill, Indianola, and Carlisle each answer their own non-emergency line directly. None of this is obvious until you need it, so here’s the full list:

Public works is the department that fixes the physical stuff — potholes, downed tree limbs blocking a street, a streetlight that’s been out for a month, a water main break flooding a road, sewer backups on city-owned lines. Nearly every city routes this through either a dedicated public works line or straight through city hall, and a few offer an app or online portal as an alternative to calling.

Des Moines runs a 24-hour Public Works Customer Service Center at (515) 283-4950 — this is the number for potholes, streetlights, and most other street or utility issues on city property, and it’s staffed around the clock, not just business hours. Des Moines also has the myDSMmobile app, which lets you drop a location pin on a map instead of describing where the problem is over the phone; that’s worth downloading if you report issues more than once a year.

West Des Moines and the surrounding west-metro suburbs use the SeeClickFix platform for non-urgent reporting (potholes, graffiti, a streetlight out) in addition to phone lines — search “SeeClickFix West Des Moines” or check your city’s website for the link. For anything urgent (an active water main break, a tree down blocking a road), call your city hall number directly rather than waiting on an online report to be reviewed.

Waukee Public Works: (515) 978-7920 for routine issues; the city also keeps a dedicated Water and Public Works Emergency Line at (515) 903-8889 for after-hours water breaks and urgent situations.

Norwalk Public Works: (515) 981-9527 during business hours; after-hours emergencies route through the shared west-metro dispatch line, (515) 222-3321.

Altoona Public Works: (515) 967-2734.

Indianola Public Works / Community Development: (515) 961-9430.

Grimes Public Works: (515) 986-9636.

Bondurant Public Works: (515) 985-5110.

Carlisle Public Works: (515) 989-4012 during business hours; after-hours water and sewer issues route to (515) 961-1122.

For West Des Moines, Clive, Urbandale, Windsor Heights, Ankeny, Polk City, Johnston, and Pleasant Hill, public works doesn’t have a separately advertised line in the companion notes — call your city hall number (listed on your city’s page) and ask for public works; city hall staff will route you or forward you directly. That’s not a runaround so much as how smaller city halls are actually staffed: one phone tree, several departments behind it.

Electricity and natural gas across most of the Des Moines metro come from MidAmerican Energy, but this isn’t universal — a few cities are real exceptions worth knowing before you assume MidAmerican covers you:

Gas leak or gas emergency (if you smell gas, leave the building first, then call from a safe distance): (800) 595-5325.

Power outage or electrical emergency: (800) 799-4443.

Non-emergency customer service (billing, starting/stopping service, questions): (888) 427-5632.

The exceptions: Grimes’ natural gas comes from Black Hills Energy, not MidAmerican — their emergency and billing line is (888) 890-5554. Indianola’s electric service comes from Indianola Municipal Utilities, a locally owned utility, not MidAmerican — (515) 961-9444. Carlisle runs its own municipal electric utility as well, separate from MidAmerican — see Carlisle’s city page for the specific numbers. And parts of Ankeny and West Des Moines may also be served by Black Hills Energy for natural gas rather than MidAmerican, depending on the specific address — check a recent gas bill if you’re unsure which company to call. When in doubt anywhere in the metro, your gas or electric bill will say which company to call; don’t assume MidAmerican by default if you’re in one of these cities.

Water is where it gets local again — each city either runs its own water utility or buys treated water from a neighboring one, and billing/service lines are separate from MidAmerican entirely. Des Moines Water Works serves Des Moines proper and several surrounding communities under contract; reach them at (515) 283-8700, which is staffed for billing and general questions 8 a.m.–4:30 p.m. weekdays and answers water emergencies (a major leak, no water pressure, suspected contamination) 24/7. West Des Moines Water Works is a separate utility serving West Des Moines directly — check wdmww.com for their current contact numbers if you’re a West Des Moines resident with a water service question rather than calling Des Moines Water Works. Other suburbs run their own water departments through city hall (see your city’s page for the specific line) — don’t assume Des Moines Water Works covers you just because you’re in the metro.

If a utility bill itself is the problem rather than a service issue — you’re behind on a MidAmerican bill, or a water bill you can’t catch up on — that’s a different conversation than the one this guide is built for, and it deserves a fuller answer than a phone number. MidAmerican offers budget billing and hardship programs you can ask about directly through their customer service line above, and Iowa’s Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) helps eligible households cover heating and cooling costs seasonally. We cover the full landscape of rent, utility, and shutoff assistance — including exactly what to do at each stage, from a first missed payment through a disconnection notice — in our companion guide to paying rent and utilities in the Des Moines metro.

Tall weeds, a junk car on blocks, trash piling up in a yard, an unpermitted addition, a fence built too close to the property line — these are code enforcement issues, not police matters, and nearly every city handles them through the same building/inspections division that issues permits. Call your city hall’s general line and ask for code enforcement or code compliance; most cities also let you file a complaint online through their website, and several (Des Moines included) allow anonymous reporting if you’re not comfortable being named to a neighbor. Des Moines routes code complaints through its Neighborhood Inspections Division, reachable through the main Public Works Customer Service Center at (515) 283-4950 or the city’s website.

Noise complaints sit in a gray area between code enforcement and police, and which one you call depends on timing and severity. A one-time loud party at 11 p.m. is a non-emergency police matter — call your city’s non-emergency line from the list above, and an officer can respond and give a verbal warning if it’s actually violating a local noise ordinance. A chronic issue (a neighbor who’s loud every weekend, a business running equipment before permitted hours) is better handled as a pattern complaint to code enforcement, since police responding to a single night doesn’t fix a recurring problem. Every city sets its own quiet hours, typically somewhere between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., so check your city’s municipal code if you want the exact cutoff before calling.

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988, available 24/7, free and confidential, for anyone in emotional distress or suicidal crisis, or worried about someone else.

Your Life Iowa — (855) 581-8111, or text (855) 895-8398, Iowa’s statewide line for mental health, substance use, and problem gambling support, staffed by people trained specifically in those areas.

Polk County Crisis Services — (515) 288-0818, for urgent but non-life-threatening mental health needs in Polk County outside normal business hours, including weekends and holidays.

Iowa Poison Control Center — (800) 222-1222, available 24/7 for poisoning, suspected overdose, or “is this actually dangerous” questions about a swallowed substance, a plant, a medication mix-up, or a chemical exposure. Don’t wait for symptoms — call as soon as you’re worried.

If someone is in immediate physical danger right now, call 911 first — the resources below are for getting ongoing support and for reporting abuse that isn’t an active, in-progress emergency.

Iowa Victim Service Call Center — (800) 770-1650, or text “IOWAHELP” to 20121, free and confidential, 24/7, covering every county in Iowa including the whole metro. This is the statewide line for domestic violence, sexual violence, stalking, human trafficking, and related trauma — advocates can connect you to local shelters, legal help, and safety planning, or simply talk through what’s happening and what your options are.

Iowa Child and Dependent Adult Abuse Hotline — (800) 362-2178, 24/7, run by Iowa Health and Human Services, and the correct number to call to report suspected abuse or neglect of both a child and a dependent adult (including elder abuse), whether the person is a family member, a caregiver’s client, or a stranger you’re worried about. You can remain anonymous unless you’re calling as a mandatory reporter (teachers, medical staff, and certain other professions are legally required to identify themselves). If the abuse is happening at a licensed nursing home or health care facility specifically, Iowa’s Department of Inspections and Appeals also runs a dedicated complaint line at (877) 686-0027.

Not every medical worry needs an ambulance, and knowing the tier below 911 can save you hours in a waiting room. For something happening right now that’s serious but not clearly life-threatening — a deep cut that needs stitches, a suspected broken bone, a bad fever in a child — an urgent care clinic may be faster than an emergency room and can cost less, depending on the situation and coverage; the metro has urgent care locations run by MercyOne, UnityPoint Health, and several independent operators scattered across Des Moines, West Des Moines, Ankeny, and most other suburbs, generally open evenings and weekends. For a true emergency — chest pain, difficulty breathing, uncontrolled bleeding, stroke symptoms, a serious injury — call 911 or go straight to an emergency room; don’t drive yourself if symptoms could worsen suddenly. If you’re just trying to figure out which tier a situation falls into, both MercyOne and UnityPoint Health run 24/7 nurse advice lines for patients — check your insurance card or provider’s website for the current number, since these lines are tied to your specific health system rather than the metro generally. For poisoning or a suspected dangerous substance exposure specifically, skip the nurse line and go straight to Iowa Poison Control at (800) 222-1222, covered above — they’re faster and more specialized for that one category of problem than any general triage line.

Most of the metro sits in Polk County, but the western edge (Waukee, Clive, parts of Urbandale and Grimes) touches Dallas County, and the southern suburbs (Indianola, Carlisle, and unincorporated areas south of Norwalk) sit in Warren County. County government matters for things city hall doesn’t handle: property tax questions, vehicle registration and driver’s licenses, marriage licenses, court records, and General Assistance (emergency county aid for residents in financial crisis).

Polk County general services and departmental directory: reachable through polkcountyiowa.gov, with Polk County General Assistance specifically at (515) 286-2088 for residents who need emergency help with rent, utilities, or basic needs and don’t yet know where else to turn (see our full guide on paying rent and utilities for the fuller picture of that system).

Dallas County Sheriff’s Office: (515) 993-4567 non-emergency; general county services through dallascountyiowa.gov.

Warren County Sheriff’s Office: (515) 690-9230 dispatch, (515) 961-1122 administrative; general county services through warrencountyia.gov.

If you’re not sure which county you’re in, that’s genuinely common at the edges of Waukee, Clive, and Norwalk — check your property tax statement or call your city hall, and they’ll be able to tell you immediately.

Driver’s licenses, vehicle registration, and voter registration also run through your county, not your city or the state directly, at your County Treasurer’s office (registration, plates, property tax) and the Iowa DOT’s driver’s license issuance stations (which operate out of county-level offices in Polk, Dallas, and Warren counties). If you’ve just moved to the metro and need to handle either one, your county auditor or treasurer’s website is the right starting point — we cover this in more detail, along with the rest of the new-resident checklist, in a companion guide once it publishes.

The Animal Rescue League of Iowa handles animal control, stray pickup, bite reports, lost-and-found pets, and neglect/abuse complaints for Des Moines and most of the surrounding metro: (515) 262-9503. For unincorporated Polk County specifically, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office also fields animal complaints at the same (515) 286-3333 non-emergency line. If you’re outside Polk County, check your city’s page or call city hall — some smaller suburbs handle animal control through their own public works or police department rather than contracting with ARL.

A found or lost pet is usually faster to resolve online than by phone — ARL and most metro shelters post intake photos daily, so checking their website or Facebook page alongside a phone call improves your odds, especially in the first 24 hours after a pet goes missing, when it’s most likely to still be in the immediate area.

Trash and recycling collection is contracted differently city by city — some suburbs use a single city-contracted hauler, others let residents choose among approved private haulers — so your bill and your pickup schedule come from your own city, not a single metro-wide provider. What is metro-wide is where a lot of that material actually ends up: Metro Waste Authority, a regional agency serving most of the metro’s cities, runs the area’s landfill, recycling processing, and hazardous waste disposal programs, and its “Where It Should Go” tool (whereitshouldgo.com) is the fastest way to figure out how to get rid of something unusual — paint, electronics, a mattress, yard waste. Metro Waste Authority‘s general line is (515) 244-0021. For our full item-by-item breakdown of where to recycle, donate, or dispose of almost anything in the metro, see our companion guide.

DART (Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority) runs the metro’s bus system, plus paratransit and on-call service in several suburbs. Customer service — routes, schedules, fares, lost items — is at (515) 283-8100, staffed weekdays 7 a.m.–6 p.m. and weekends 8 a.m.–4 p.m. Several outer suburbs (Grimes, Waukee, Norwalk, and others) aren’t on DART‘s fixed-route network at all and instead use a reservation-based On Call service that covers a defined zone — if you’re in one of those cities, check DART‘s website for your specific zone before assuming the regular bus schedule applies to you. If you’re trying to figure out whether you can realistically live in the metro without a car, including paratransit eligibility and medical transportation options, that’s a deeper topic than fits here — see our full guide to getting around the metro without a car.

If you’ve read this far and still aren’t sure who handles your specific problem — or the issue is less “who do I call” and more “I don’t know what help exists” — dial 211. It’s a free, 24/7 human-staffed referral line covering the whole state, run locally by United Way of Central Iowa, and the person who answers is specifically trained to sort exactly this kind of question and point you to the right agency, nonprofit, or government office. You can also reach the same service at (866) 813-1731, online at 211iowa.org, or by texting your ZIP code to 898211. Think of it as the fallback for every situation this guide doesn’t cover by name.

A few habits make almost every call in this guide go faster, regardless of department. Have your exact address ready before you dial, including the city — dispatchers and customer service reps field calls from every corner of the metro and can’t assume where you’re calling from. If you’re reporting something location-based (a pothole, a downed line, a stray animal), a cross street or a nearby landmark helps more than you’d think, especially in newer subdivisions where GPS pins aren’t always accurate yet. For anything non-urgent, calling during business hours (roughly 8 a.m.–4:30 p.m. weekdays for most city halls) gets you a live person faster than after-hours, when many smaller cities route to a shared answering service or voicemail. And where an app or online portal exists — myDSMmobile for Des Moines, SeeClickFix for several west-metro suburbs — using it for routine, non-urgent reports (a pothole, graffiti, a burned-out streetlight) is often faster than waiting on hold, since it goes directly into the same work-order queue a phone call would create, without the hold time.

One more thing worth knowing: almost none of the numbers in this guide are staffed 24/7 except the ones explicitly marked that way above (Des Moines police and public works, Des Moines Water Works emergencies, MidAmerican’s emergency lines, and the crisis and poison lines). If you call a city hall or a suburb’s public works line at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday, you’ll likely reach voicemail — for anything that genuinely can’t wait until morning, that’s when the shared dispatch lines and county sheriff numbers become the right call instead, since dispatch centers are staffed around the clock even when the department they serve isn’t.

Every suburb below has its own full page with the complete local list — non-emergency police, public works, city hall, and water, plus anything specific to that city that didn’t fit here. Start with the metro-wide numbers above for anything that applies everywhere (911, MidAmerican, poison control, crisis lines), then click through to your city for the rest.

(Internal links above point to each city’s companion guide in this series — see the companion notes file for publish-order dependencies.)

Know about a wrong number or a department that’s moved? Let us know and we’ll get it fixed — this guide only works if it stays accurate. Subscribe to the newsletter at desmoinesdigest.com/subscribe/ for updates when we refresh guides like this one, and follow us on Facebook and Instagram for the smaller stuff that doesn’t make it into a full guide.