Sixth Outage of 2024 Raises Concerns Over DC 911 Call Center

Source: SAUL LOEB / Getty

D.C.’s 911 call center is under scrutiny again after a 20-minute system outage on Friday evening, forcing manual dispatching. This follows ongoing concerns from residents and city leaders over delayed response times that have resulted in deaths.

Councilmember Robert White labeled the situation a “crisis,” and Councilmember Brianne Nadeau criticized the agency’s repeated failures. The Office of Unified Communications (OUC) has experienced at least five service disruptions this year, including during a recent incident where a 5-year-old died.

An investigation is ongoing, but it’s unclear if the outage contributed to the child’s death. Despite the outage, OUC stated that 911 calls were still processed. The city is working on system upgrades, and White is drafting legislation to address the issues.

source: The DMV Daily

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