After damage to AT&T fiber and copper lines disrupted several critical Oakland communications systems from Wednesday night into Friday morning, questions remain about how the city\u2019s 911 system failed \u2014 and whether it could happen again.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy is this so easy [to] access to [the] public,\u201d asked @aludeurquiza on Instagram.<\/p>\n
\u201cIsn\u2019t something this sensitive supposed to be protected in some way,\u201d asked @streldunn.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow will this be prevented in the future? It is absolutely unacceptable how long this took to be resolved,\u201d said @garrettnoodle.<\/p>\n
AT&T told NBC Bay Area\u2019s Investigative Unit that damage to fiber and copper lines Wednesday evening interrupting multiple critical Oakland systems for over 24 hours. The outage affected Oakland\u2019s 911 and non-emergency phone lines, the Fire Department\u2019s 911 system and internet and computer-aided dispatch software at OPD\u2019s dispatch center. All services were back to normal Friday morning around 8:30 a.m., according to police.<\/p>\n
One of the first questions asked during a police press conference on Thursday: What happened to the systems\u2019 backup plans? \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cRegards to the 911 line, we do have some fallback plans,\u201d Oakland Police Chief James Beere said during a press conference on Thursday. \u201cUnfortunately, both the initial fallback plans were compromised\u2026so we had to fall back on our outside partner, which is the Alameda County Sheriff\u2019s Department.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beere offered this insight on Thursday, but the police department declined the Investigative Unit\u2019s request for an interview on Friday to ask additional questions. The department cited the active investigation.<\/p>\n
Questions remain about why both fallback systems failed and whether the affected AT&T lines should have been better protected. The chief suggested that the damage may have involved more than an attempt to steal copper wiring.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say this is more of a bad actor than vandalism, particularly just because there\u2019s more than one line and the amount of damage that was done,\u201d he said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
During the outage, 911 calls in Oakland were routed to the Alameda County Sheriff\u2019s Office and OPD said officers would only respond to Priority 1 calls, including incidents involving violence or immediate threat to life or serious injury. \u00a0<\/p>\n
NBC Bay Area asked disaster experts what might have happened if a major earthquake had struck while Oakland\u2019s communications systems were down. They said it could look a lot like Thursday, only worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tell people not to expect to be even able to make a phone call,\u201d said Mark Benthien with the Statewide California Earthquake Center.<\/p>\n
Benthien and Angie Lux with the Berkeley Seismology Laboratory said if a major earthquake triggered severe damage, \u00a0communications systems could be down for days even weeks \u2013 similar to what happened in Oakland but on a larger scale.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, [this was] terrible, but it\u2019s a good preparation for what could be a reality following a major earthquake,\u201d Lux said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is also emphasizing the importance of community preparedness,\u201d Benthien said. \u201cSo, knowing your neighbors, knowing the resources in your community, like on your block.\u201d<\/p>\n
For information on how to be prepared before, during and after a major earthquake: www.EarthquakeCountry.org.<\/p>\n
Candice Nguyen is the Senior Investigative Reporter on this story. If you have a comment or a question, email her at candice.nguyen@nbcuni.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After damage to AT&T fiber and copper lines disrupted several critical Oakland communications systems from Wednesday night into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-506753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}