Oakland's 911 and city phone systems were fully back online around 8:30 a.m. Friday, after an outage that began at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, CBS News Bay Area reported. City and AT&T crews worked overnight to repair damaged lines.
What happened
- Dispatchers noticed the computer-aided dispatch system freeze Wednesday night and then found no service on emergency or non-emergency lines, CBS reported.
- Police and AT&T said both copper and fiber optic lines were cut. Police are investigating it as a criminal act.
- During the outage, 911 calls went to the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, and Oakland police responded only to Priority 1 calls, NBC Bay Area reported.
Why the backups failed
"Unfortunately, both the initial fallback plans were compromised…so we had to fall back on our outside partner, which is the Alameda County Sheriff's Department," Police Chief James Beere said Thursday, according to NBC Bay Area. He added: "I would say this is more of a bad actor than vandalism, particularly just because there's more than one line and the amount of damage that was done."
The city said it will keep working with AT&T to "harden critical infrastructure and strengthen backup systems." Police are asking anyone who sees people cutting or removing cable to report it.
Earlier: Our first report on the outage.