Fire chief reports on 911 problems

By Elisa Glushefski

Published: July 22, 2008

Since upgrades were made to Prince William County's 911 call system, the primary server that relays the calls has experienced interruptions on four occasions. The first led to a seven-minute delay in dispatching firefighters to a house fire in Dale City, officials said Tuesday.

The first problem was on May 28—the day of the upgrade to equipment that handles 911 and non-emergency telephone traffic—after Verizon technicians switched from the backup system to the primary system.

It was the first upgrade in the system's five years of operation, Fire and Rescue Chief Kevin J. McGee said during his presentation of preliminary findings of the ongoing investigation to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors during an afternoon public hearing.

The Public Safety Communications Center experienced subsequent problems with the system—all tracing back to the May 28 upgrade—on July 4, July 10, and from the evening of July 11 into the next morning. The problems that occurred on those days are still under investigation.

"We want it returned to its former level of reliability," McGee said, adding that the system is now stable.

According to a timeline of events for May 28, the first call reporting a fire at 4512 Kingston Road was attempted from a residential landline about 5:50 p.m. The communications center did not receive that call, McGee said.

About 5 1/2 minutes later, the system released what McGee described as an "avalanche of calls that had been trapped in the system."

About 5:58 p.m., the first dispatch was entered in the system.

"Delay in response was not due to any employee activity or inactivity," McGee said to the board.

The system logged off the call takers, he said, but there was nothing in the system alerting them to that.

No one was injured in the blaze, but the house sustained significant fire, smoke and water damage.

Officials determined that 911 calls reporting the fire became trapped in a queue as a result of glitches in the 911 call server's software, which affected the two other primary servers.

Since the investigation began, Verizon has agreed to submit all work plans in writing and to discuss the plans with the county before beginning work.

Additionally, a team of Verizon technicians trained for each major component of the call system will be present for any maintenance or repair work, McGee said. On May 28, technicians trained only for the one server that was being worked on were there.

Technical support was given provided over the phone, McGee said, adding, however, that that doesn't compare to having on-site support.

On the evening of July 4, the call center experienced problems caused by a failed data switch that was replaced the next day.

The Verizon Monitoring Station had received an alarm about the problem, but did not notify the communications center about it, McGee said. The 911 call center supervisor noticed the problem and contacted Verizon.

Because of problems that night, a resident's call for emergency medical service was not received and he had to drive the family member to the hospital.

The system rebooted again on July 10, but the company's monitoring station this time alerted the call center of the problem and no 911 calls were lost. The reboot resulted from a faulty power supply in the server, the report states.

On July 12, some cell phone calls about a vehicle collision were not received, but others were. There were no delays in responding to emergencies, according to the report, and the cause is still under investigation.

How long before the system was back to full service on those three occasions is still being investigated.

"Anything at this point would be speculation," Catherine Hogan Lewis, a Verizon spokeswoman, said in a news conference following the presentation.

A full report will be released when the investigation is complete, McGee said.

Staff writer Elisa Glushefski can be reached at 703-878-8062.