Oakland 911 system outage reroutes calls to Alameda County dispatch

Oakland's 911 call system experienced a major outage Wednesday night starting around 8:30 p.m., causing the Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) system to freeze and display error messages, according to sfist.com and KRON4. This disruption affected both emergency and non-emergency phone lines within the Oakland Police Department.

By approximately 9:45 p.m., calls were rerouted to the Alameda County Sheriff's Office dispatch center, a process that remains in place as of Thursday. Oakland Police Chief James Beere shared that OPD dispatchers have been relocated to the Oakland Fire Dispatch Center and Alameda County Sheriff's dispatch center to maintain emergency response capabilities.

The outage also impacted OAK311 lines, with callers reporting major infrastructure or flooding emergencies advised to call 911 directly. Non-emergency requests are being handled via email at the city's designated address. The cause of the system failure remains unknown, and no timeline for restoration has been provided.

Oakland’s 911 system underwent its first upgrade in 20 years in 2024 to a Motorola PremiereOne system, but it is unclear if this relates to the current CAD system failure. Prior to the upgrade, call response times were criticized, with about half of calls answered within 15 seconds, below the state standard of 90%, as reported by KRON4.

The city's IT department is working with AT&T to restore internet and phone services to resume normal 911 operations. For now, Oakland is responding only to Priority One calls, prioritizing the most urgent emergencies.