Power Knocked Out At Sacramento Fire Dispatch Center, Law Enforcement Taking Calls
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) -- The Sacramento Regional Fire/EMS Communications Center, the agency responsible for dispatching all fire crews and ambulances in Sacramento County was dispatching in the dark on Sunday night.
Sacramento Metro Fire Captain Chris Vestal confirmed the outage to CBS13 on Sunday evening and said that local Law Enforcement dispatch centers were answering the Fire and EMS phone calls. Those law enforcement dispatchers are in contact with Fire Dispatchers via cell phone, who are then dispatching Fire and EMS crews using handheld radios and keeping track of them using paper. Normally Fire dispatchers use dispatch consoles with radios and computers. Fire crews are still responding to calls normally Captain Vestal said.
It's not known why the Fire/EMS dispatch center's backup power system failed, leaving dispatchers in the dark, but crews are investigating and working on fixing the problem. It's not known when power will be restored.