NYC's Computerized 911 Dispatch System Goes Down; Operators Manually Process Calls
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- New York City's computerized 911 system went down for close to two hours on Monday, officials said.
The Computer Aided Dispatch system, also known as CAD, went down at around 2:30 p.m., WCBS 880 reported. The system was restored at around 4:12 p.m., CBS2's Marcia Kramer reported.
CAD is the computer processing system that helps organize and prioritize 911 calls.
Only the ambulance system was affected by the outage. The 911 system for police and fire calls remained operational.
NYC's Computerized 911 Dispatch System Goes Down; Operators Manually Process Calls
During the outage, dispatchers had to take notes about medical emergency by hand, 1010 WINS' Carol D'Auria reported. Ambulances were then dispatched verbally, instead of through the system.
The FDNY said they train for these occurrences and have extra personnel on hand to help make it a seamless transition from automated to paper.
This is not the first time the system has failed, and officials said they're not sure yet what caused the outage this time.
The de Blasio administration is looking to install a new computer system, but the fix isn't scheduled to be completed until sometime in 2016.
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