Oakland’s 911 dispatch system glitches again, slowing emergency response

The computer system was down Saturday morning after being temporarily restored on Friday.

A computer system failure Saturday morning has again forced dispatchers in Oakland’s high-volume 911 center to take down callers’ information with pen and paper, slowing the city’s ability to respond to emergencies.

The system, which dispatchers also rely upon to communicate with police officers, had been down for about 26 hours this week until it was temporarily restored early Friday evening. But at around 9:10 a.m. Saturday, city officials said they had again “observed impacts” to the system.

“All dispatch staff have resumed manual call routing,” the city said in a statement. “As a result, routing for calls is currently slower than normal. All emergency calls are being answered and appropriately dispatched for police, fire, and medical services.

“If you call 911 and your call drops or you receive a busy signal, please hang up and call back.”

Inside the emergency control center, dispatchers have been forced to re-route calls and respond to requests for help using handwritten notes and radios to reach officers on the street, said Sgt. Barry Donelan, president of the Oakland police officer’s union.

“The whole process is slow as molasses,” said Donelan, who blamed the city’s IT team for the repeated system failures. “It’s completely unacceptable.”

Earlier this year, a ransomware attack exposed weaknesses in the city’s cybersecurity infrastructure, and hackers revealed reams of its employees’ data.

But even before this week’s crash, Oakland’s slow emergency response times had garnered intense scrutiny, most recently in a scathing Alameda County Civil Grand Jury report. The city’s 911 center, which handled more than a million calls in 2022, is understaffed and needs more modern software, the grand jury concluded last month.

The ongoing system failures started with a power outage at 3:10 p.m. Thursday, when the lights went out for 10,800 residents across Oakland, according to Pacific Gas & Electric. Power was restored slightly more than two hours later, said the utility, which is still investigating the cause.

It’s unclear how many 911 calls may have been delayed or missed since then or when the system could be back up and running, Donelan said.

“The quicker, the better for our residents, the cops on our streets and the poor dispatchers who are toiling in a terrible situation,” he said.

Check back for updates.