An outage struck the 911 system across Los Angeles Thursday — leaving some callers to text their emergencies or call patrol stations’ business for help.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed to The Post that some stations’ 911 systems remained down as of Friday morning while others have been restored.
Shortly after 6 p.m. Thursday, “the Department was notified of an outage affecting the Vesta System, a third-party public safety call-handling platform… impacting 9-1-1 calls within the Sheriff’s Department’s jurisdiction,” Deputy Daniel Dominguez told NBC 4.
The department said it “deployed department electricians to assess and address the issue and are working closely with the third-party telecommunications provider to restore full service as quickly as possible.”
As a result, 911 calls were being re-routed to patrol station business lines. Some stations encouraged would-be callers to text 911 instead.
The West Hollywood Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Stations said that 911 service had been restored as of late Thursday night.
It’s unclear what caused the outage.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department told the public that it was doing everything it could to maintain emergency response services despite the outage.
“We appreciate the community’s understanding and want to reassure our residents that we are taking all necessary steps to maintain emergency response services while this issue is being resolved,” the department wrote in a statement to CBS News.
“Department personnel are proactively planning for contingencies to ensure continuity of service and to limit any potential disruption to emergency response operations.”
