Oakland 911 system goes down, calls rerouted to Alameda County

Emergency calls in the City of Oakland are being answered by Alameda County after the city's 911 system went down Wednesday night.

Around 8:30 p.m., dispatchers at the police department noticed the Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) system froze and displayed an error message. Dispatchers tried both emergency and non-emergency lines and found there was no service to all phone lines, internet or CAD, police said.

All 911 calls were transferred to the Alameda County Sheriff's Office around 9:45 p.m.

In a message posted on social media Thursday morning, Police Chief James Beere said dispatchers have been relocated to dispatch centers at the Oakland Fire Department and Alameda County Sheriff's Office. 911 calls are being answered by the county and information is being relayed to dispatchers at the fire department.

Beere said the department is only responding to Priority One calls. Meanwhile, fire department dispatchers are able to respond to all fire and medical calls.

Police said the city's IT department is working with AT&T to restore internet and phone services. Officials did not say what is causing the outage.

The same issue is also impacting the city's OAK311, which handles non-emergency calls. Officials said infrastructure emergencies such as flooding or a downed power line should be reported by calling 911, while non-emergencies should be reported by email to OAK311@oaklandca.gov.