What caused the 911 system outage in Stanislaus County? Officials want to know more
The director of the Stanislaus Regional 911 center said interruptions in the emergency call system Sunday and early Monday were caused by an AT&T phone company outage.
Wendy Silva, executive director of the regional 911 service, said she is asking AT&T for a more detailed explanation for the outage, which lasted from 5:26 p.m. Sunday to 6:33 a.m. Monday.
Silva said she’s waiting for a report from AT&T and reached out to the state Office of Emergency Services to work on getting a better understanding of what happened.
A StanAware notification Sunday at 7:53 p.m. reported interruptions in calls to the 911 center. The notice sent out on automated calls, text and email said that 911 and non-emergency calls were affected. A StanAware update at 8 a.m. Monday notified county residents that problems with the 911 system had been resolved and people could use the emergency number again.
Modesto police and the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department also posted information about the outage on social media.
Silva said dispatching staff noticed a hiccup in the system at 5:26 p.m. Sunday when computer screens flashed and they weren’t able to automatically retrieve a caller’s number and location. AT&T notified the agency about its outage around 7:20 p.m., she said.
According to the StanAware notice, people still could reach the dispatch service by texting 911. The Turlock and Oakdale police departments lack the texting capability, so phone numbers were provided on StanAware for those two departments.
Seven-digit emergency numbers also were temporarily provided for people in Ceres, Modesto and other parts of Stanislaus County. Another emergency number was created for reaching the California Highway Patrol.
The StanAware update Monday morning said residents no longer should experience issues when dialing 911 in an emergency. The regional center urged people not to dial the emergency number to test the system. Tests were conducted to make sure the system was working properly.
The executive director said the 911 center was not aware of any significant incidents missed during the outage.
Silva said the AT&T outage affected phone customers in Stanislaus County and possibly parts of San Joaquin and Merced counties. Stanislaus Regional 911 is operated through a joint powers agreement between Modesto and Stanislaus County.
“Nothing went wrong on our side,” Silva said. “We were purely at the whim of AT&T.”
This story was originally published September 7, 2021 at 2:58 PM.
