Miami Police on backup phone system after power outage

COCONUT GROVE, Fla. (WSVN) -- There's trouble on the line at Miami Police Headquarters, after their phone system went down, but police officials assure that all emergency calls are getting through.

Miami Police Chief John Timoney said the power went down at the City of Miami Police Headquarters in Coconut Grove at around 5:50 a.m. Wednesday, bringing the phone system off line. Calls to 911 were re-routed through the emergency phone system in Doral and then back to the Grove building.

Timoney has assured that no 911 calls were missed, and they received 70 to 90 calls during the down time, between the hours of 5:52 and 8:30 in the morning, before the 911 system was brought back up and running on all three levels.

Also affected by the outage were communications from the radio dispatch center. By 8:30 a.m. that was also back on-line.

The outage caused a 15 to 20 minute lag period before the connection to the Coconut Grove facility started receiving 911 calls again. During that time, emergency operators in Miami-Dade took all 911 calls and none of the City of Miami 911 calls were missed.

The police chief said several factors made the situation easier to control. "We were fortunate for a variety of reasons," Timoney said. "One, today, at the police department, on Wednesday, is an overlap day, so there were twice as many police officers available. Similarly, there were twice as many civilian personnel. We were also fortunate in that it happened just before the 6 a.m. shift."

After noon, the e-mail was still down and some phones were down.

Timoney said the department does not know how or why the power went out and added that an investigation will occur.

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