S.F. 911 system computer crash forced dispatchers to use pen and paper for hours

San Francisco’s 911 computer system crashed for several hours Thursday, forcing dispatchers to resort to what’s called “manual mode”: recording the details of a call by hand, then passing them to a “runner” to summon emergency crews.

The runners serve as messengers, taking written information from one side of a call center and transporting it to another, in order to deploy police, fire, paramedics and street crisis teams, said Department of Emergency Management Executive Director Mary Ellen Carroll.

In an interview Thursday morning, she outlined a process that’s tightly orchestrated, but cumbersome, for call center workers. Dispatchers take notes either with pen and paper, or by typing up a report that they either print out or email to someone on another side of the office. Once the outage is over, they have to file all of the typed or printed information back into the dispatch system, Carroll said.

“This is a status we practice going into,” Carroll said, assuring that there is no impact on the public or the department’s ability to deliver services.

“It happens infrequently, and we often have planned exercises to ensure things work smoothly,” a spokesperson for the San Francisco Fire Department told the Chronicle in a text message. Another city staff member said the center was still able to take 911 calls.

Spokespeople for the Department of Emergency Management, which runs the city’s 911 system, said its staff is “always ready” for these situations.

“We have to be, because there are many circumstances that can require us to rely on redundant dispatch systems,” a statement from the department read.

The breakdown occurred a day after city leaders opened a new 911 call center, which Mayor London Breed touted as a “state of the art” facility and a “significant step in modernizing one of our city’s most essential services.” This newly unveiled call center bore no fault for the problems on Thursday, several city staffers said, though it showed how far the city has to go to create an adequate, functioning emergency response system.

“We have an ailing, ancient computer dispatch system that’s in need of replacement,” said Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, who is running against Breed for mayor. 

Representatives of Breed’s office acknowledged similarly that “outdated infrastructure has limitations and interruptions are unpredictable, which is why investing in state of the art technology and infrastructure is critical and important. In a statement, the office described the new call center as one phase in a huge overhaul of San Francisco’s 911 operations.

Multiple city departments are collaborating on a $44 million project to replace the computer-aided dispatch system, which has reached the end of its useful life, according to the statement from the Department of Emergency Management. The city has selected a vendor for the new system and finished contract negotiations this year.

The project will require a “complete refresh of system hardware, software and networking technology,” the statement read, noting that dispatchers may experience “intermittent operational disruptions” during the transition, but that it won’t impede people’s ability to call 911 or receive emergency services. The new system should be fully installed in two to three years.

Reach Rachel Swan: rswan@sfchronicle.com. Reach Michael Barba: michael.barba@sfchronicle.com