Concerns after sixth DC 911 call center outage this year

WASHINGTON – Washington DC’s emergency call center is once again under criticism after its system failed on Friday evening.

Previously, residents and city leaders had made numerous calls for change after delayed response times resulted in animal and human deaths.

FOX 5 learned that the city’s main control system went down for 20 minutes around 5:15 p.m. Friday.

The city describes this as an interruption in connectivity that requires manual dispatch.

One DC council member calls the situation a “crisis” at the Office of Unified Communications, the central office responsible for routing emergency calls.

Council member Robert White said on social media that he had received numerous calls from residents demanding immediate change.

“I’ve been denouncing this for a long time. It’s a public safety issue. It’s a public health issue. It’s a life-saving issue,” said Councilman Robert White.

Councilmember White is not alone. Just last month, Councilmember Brianne Nadeau wrote a letter to OUC and the city administration, writing, “The agency’s continued failure to send help where it is needed is alarming and unacceptable.”

FOX 5 can confirm that there have been at least five incidents this year where outages have resulted in service interruptions at OUC.

What we currently know is that an investigation is underway into the death of a five-year-old baby who died following cardiac arrest in the North West this month.

There were reportedly problems with handling during this time. It is currently unclear whether the technical problems contributed to the baby’s death.

Councilman White says enough is enough and he is currently working on a bill to address the problems at the call center.

OUC added that although they had to switch to manual mode, they were still able to answer emergency calls and handle calls.