Flooding causes 911 outage in Marin County; AT&T issue now resolved

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King tides flooded parts of Marin County, including Larkspur, on Jan. 3, 2026

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. - An AT&T issue caused the 911 system to go down in parts of Marin County on Sunday evening, but police said the issue has been resolved by early Monday morning.

What we know:

San Rafael Police Lt. Scott Eberle said that the 911 system experienced a "significant outage" on Sunday about 8:30 p.m.

Eberle said that crews figured out that an AT&T communications hub in San Rafael had flooded, causing a widespread failure of phone services throughout the region. He said the outage affected the police department, and community members' landlines, wireless service, and intercom systems.

As a result, the Novato Police Department, which was not impacted by the outage, began receiving San Rafael’s emergency landline 911 calls at about 10 p.m. About 45 minutes later, San Rafael Police Department dispatchers were able to get wireless 911 calls, he said.

At about 11 p.m., Eberle said that Verizon successfully rerouted all 911 calls and by 1 a.m. on Monday, the AT&T outage was resolved, and 911 calls were operating normally.

During the outage, Eberle said two residents came directly to the San Rafael Police Department, reporting that their cell phones were not functioning, and one person came to report that their relative was in an accident on the freeway.

He said police officers were able to respond to the accident, and the California Highway Patrol was already on scene.

King tides flooded parts of Marin County and San Francisco over the weekend, making travel difficult.

AT&T has acknowledged the issue and assigned technicians on a priority basis, Eberle said.