Oakland 911 disruption: Police probe potential criminal act as emergency lines fail
Police say AT&T lines for Oakland 911 system severed, now a criminal investigation into (photo credit: AT&T)
AT&T provided photos of severed lines in Oakland that took down the city's 911 emergency system Wednesday night, forcing Oakland to route 911 calls through Alameda County's dispatch and Oakland Fire Department's dispatch center. Oakland Police Chief says he and the Fire Chief are now discussing alternate technologies that do not rely on cables.
OAKLAND, Calif. - Phone service was restored Friday morning in Oakland, after the 911 system went down, possibly due to vandalism of copper wiring, officials reported.
911 back online
What we know:
The city of Oakland said that the computer dispatch systems were fixed Thursday afternoon, and the 911 service was up and running as of Friday morning, after city and AT&T crews worked through the night to perform repairs to the damaged infrastructure.
Oakland’s 911 emergency system went offline Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. after fiber-optic and copper lines were damaged, prompting police to investigate whether the disruption was criminal.
Emergency calls to the Oakland Police Department were rerouted to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office dispatch center and to Oakland fire's dispatch center.
OPD fallbacks compromised
At a Thursday afternoon press conference, Oakland Police Chief James Beere said the department had two fallback systems in place, but both were compromised during the system outage.
Beere underscored that this level of service disruption is not normal.
"We really need to ensure that the security of our systems are in place," Councilwoman and chair of the Oakland Public Safety Committee Charlene Wang said. "I'm glad we have a backup plan but we need to make sure this isn't happening because I know many of our constituents rely on the non-emergency line, and we'll have to see too if there's any delays in the 911 response time."
Oakland 911 disruption: Possible criminal cause
Authorities are investigating whether the Oakland 911 outage was a criminal act.
What we don't know:
Investigators are following leads to determine if the lines were intentionally tampered with.
AT&T said in a statement the damage to its network was due to "theft and vandalism," including cuts to fiber and copper wire.
Meanwhile, Morgan Hill police also reported its non-emergency phone lines went down on Thursday as of 1 p.m. because of someone cutting copper cables that affected Verizon service. Morgan Hill police said the 911 emergency lines remained fully operational.
No delays reported for priority calls
Local perspective:
Despite the outage in Oakland, Alameda County Sheriff's Sgt. Roberto Morales said there weren't any delays being reported because of the disruption.
OPD dispatchers sat next to the county dispatchers and taking the calls that pertain to Oakland.
Due to limited call capacity, OPD dispatchers only responded to Priority 1 calls.
The OAK311 lines were also impacted by the disruption, but as of Friday, they were working again, the city reported.
The Source: Information for this story comes from Oakland police, AT&T, Councilwoman Charlene Wang and the Alameda County Sheriff's Office.