July 23, 2004
BY FRANK MAIN AND CATHLEEN FALSANI Staff Reporters
Some Chicagoans were unable to reach 911 operators Thursday afternoon because the city's vaunted emergency communications system was knocked out of service by a power failure, officials said.
The Office of Emergency Management and Communications center on the Near West Side shut down at 2:33 p.m., and the city scrambled to switch to a backup system at the city's 311 center.
Citizens were urged to call the 311 line, which usually handles non-emergency calls for police, fire and other city services.
"A handful of [911] calls were missed," said Monique Bond, a spokeswoman for the 911 center.
About five calls did "trickle in in other ways" to the Fire Department, added Ron Huberman, the new director of the 911 center. First Deputy Fire Commissioner Norbert Diaz said he believed two of those were "medical calls."
The delay in getting calls answered and dispatched lasted about an hour, Huberman said.
"There are fewer call takers at 311 than at 911, and for that reason the calls queued up and there was a delay there while the phone was ringing," he said. "Within an hour window, we fully staffed the 311 center with call takers and dispatchers from the 911 center."
Huberman said he did not know of any harm that came from the delays. Hospitals reported no problems.
Still, an Area 1 detective called the breakdown a potential disaster.
"My car can talk to another car, but we have no communication with the dispatcher," said the detective, who asked not to be named. "This is crazy, especially during a presidential visit on homeland security."
Another police source said a health-care agency could not get through to 911 to report a man who threatened to kill agency workers. The threat was not carried out.
It was the first major communications snafu for the $217 million 911 center at 1411 W. Madison since it opened in 1995, officials said. The center handles about 18,000 calls a day -- and about 70 were taken in the first few minutes of the crisis, officials said. The 311 center at 2111 W. Lexington opened in 1998.
Huberman said the cause of the power failure was undetermined, but officials noticed a universal power source for the center was "extremely hot."
"We don't know if it was weather related," said Bond, referring to thunderstorms and high winds that moved through the area Wednesday.
Huberman said there was a "temporary glitch" when the backup system kicked in.
"And during that short glitch, it was possible that people may have had extended ring times," he said.
Once everything was worked out, callers were getting an answer to their 911 calls in three rings -- instead of the normal one ring, Huberman said.
One 911 caller, though, said she was unable to reach an operator and heard no rings when she dialed the number.
Power has been restored to the 911 center and it could return to service today, Huberman said.
As the city struggled to fix the problem, Thursday afternoon's chatter on the police and fire frequencies was organized chaos. At 3:07 p.m., for instance, someone on the emergency radio system said: "I've been trying to reach you for seven minutes." Another person responded: "There was a power outage."
Then at 3:11 p.m., a frustrated dispatcher said: "It's all out. We have nothing on our screens. No jobs. We have nothing to give you."
Contributing: Lucio Guerrero and Annie Sweeney
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