WASHINGTON — D.C.’s 911 system outage around midnight was caused by an equipment failure, officials said in a press conference Sunday morning. They said the outage, which lasted for more than an hour, started with a power failure at the 911 call center.
According to D.C.’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency Director Chris Geldart, it was not an outage of power into the building. It was the failure of several power routers inside the building.
He also said the systems could not transfer the 911 calls to the backup center. With all the boxes going down, it was not possible to transfer the calls to another system.
Authorities said there were no signs of nefarious activity such as outside hacking. They plan to continue investigations and call in outside technicians for inspections.
During the outage, officials were taking emergency calls at two different phone numbers. They said the DC Fire Department received 35 calls from the alternate phone number, and police received five.
Officials said the system was backed up and receiving calls as of 1:30 a.m.
Karima Holmes, Office of Unified Communications director, said there was no count of the calls missed.
Officials said the 911 call center typically receives more than 300 calls during the early Sunday morning hours.
