Brandon Fletcher
On Thursday, significant disruptions to 911 and other emergency services were reported across several regions in California. Affected areas included Oakland, Riverside County (located east of Los Angeles), and Santa Barbara County along the central coast.
Emergency Service Disruptions in Oakland
The Oakland Police Department announced via Facebook that their Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) system encountered a freeze and displayed an error message around 8:30 p.m. local time on Wednesday. all 911 calls were redirected to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, and dispatch personnel were moved to a local fire dispatch center.
“We are currently responding only to Priority One calls,” the Oakland PD stated on Facebook. “The IT department for the City of Oakland is collaborating with AT&T to restore internet and phone services.”
Impact on Santa Barbara Emergency Services
Reports indicate that the 911 outages are affecting AT&T and T-Mobile customers in Santa Barbara, according to local news outlet KEYT. It remains uncertain if other mobile carriers are experiencing similar issues.
The Santa Barbara Police Department posted on Facebook: “If you are unable to reach 911, please contact the Santa Barbara Police Department’s 24/7 Dispatch Center directly at 805-882-8900 for emergency assistance.” Fortunately, the Text-to-911 service does not appear to be impacted.
Riverside County 911 Service Disruptions
The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office issued a notice on its website, indicating that some cellular users are facing challenges when attempting to call 911. Residents unable to connect to 911 in Riverside County are advised to dial 951-776-1078 for assistance.
Gizmodo reached out to the non-emergency line for the Riverside County Sheriff and spoke with an AI representative, who eventually connected us to a human operator. The operator confirmed that there are indeed issues affecting the 911 service, although it is not entirely non-functional. They provided a number for the press office but noted that it is a pager service.
After calling the pager number, we were prompted to “enter a numeric message.” We submitted our phone number in hopes of receiving a callback. Eventually, we did receive a call back, and the public information officer stated they were uncertain about which cellular services were affected but requested we send an email for further information to be shared publicly.
This situation illustrates the complexities of modern life, where advanced systems such as AI coexist with outdated and confusing processes, resulting in additional steps for all parties involved.
In response, a spokesperson for the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office informed Gizmodo:
The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office became aware of the outage earlier this morning. The cause of the disruption within the cellular service provider’s network remains unknown, as does the anticipated duration of the outage. Some cell phone users in Riverside County continue to be able to dial 9-1-1, as the law enforcement telecommunications component of the network is functioning normally.
Are the Outages Related to Black October?
The connection between the outages and what is being referred to in the cybersecurity community as Black October remains unclear. This term relates to vulnerabilities in PHP that were identified earlier this week. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince tweeted on Wednesday about “millions” of attempts to exploit these vulnerabilities.
AT&T and T-Mobile did not immediately respond to inquiries sent on Thursday regarding the outages. Officials are advising residents to refrain from calling 911 or other emergency numbers unless they are in a true emergency situation.
“Please do not call 911 to test the outage,” the public information officer for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office tweeted on Thursday. “Even if your call fails to connect, our dispatchers may still receive your number and will need to call you back.”
“These unnecessary callbacks divert valuable time from addressing actual emergencies,” the tweet added. “Please keep the 911 lines open.”
Daniel Mercer
