911 Temporarily Moves to Alternate Location

In order to continue responding to emergency calls from the public, Sedgwick County 911 moved to an alternate location after a portion of its call system went down this morning. Operations are now back to normal, and Emergency Communications continues to work with its vendor, AT&T, to identify the cause of the system error.

At 5:59 a.m., Sedgwick County Emergency Communications informed AT&T, that 911 was only receiving calls at a single console. At 6:05 a.m., after an unsuccessful attempt to reboot the other consoles, half of the third shift dispatchers and two first shift dispatchers were sent to a backup call center. At 6:29 a.m., no 911 calls were being placed by the public, and Emergency Communications was able to switch the lines and circuit any calls to the alternate site, relieving the burden from the one operating console in the main call center. From the alternate site, call takers could accept 911 calls, enter them into the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system, from which the employees in the main call center could dispatch response crews.

At 10:35 a.m., AT&T advised Emergency Communications to attempt to switch the phone lines back to the main call center. After waiting for a time when no 911 calls were being made, Emergency Communications was able to switch operations back to the main site at 10:44 a.m.

Questions about the incident should be directed to the Office of Communications and Community Initiatives at (316) 660-9370 or communications@sedgwick.gov.