Chair Brewer opens with questions on rerouting and notification failures
Chair Brewer of Governmental Operations asks why calls were not rerouted to the Brooklyn PSAC 1 facility, noting PSAC 1 and PSAC 2 are supposed to work together. She questions why it took so long to restore service and why the mayor failed to immediately inform the public, noting she learned about it from the press and local precincts.
Thank you very much.
I am Gail Brewer.
I do chair governmental operations.
I too want to thank Council Members De La Rosa, Felice, and Areola.
I also want to thank Commissioner Golopta very, very much.
New Yorkers rely, as we all know, on the 911 system.
In an emergency, we expect to be able to dial 911.
And receive immediate help.
Unfortunately for some who tried calling 911 on August 18th, as we know, that expectation was not met.
Filtering out alarms and duplicate calls, OTI estimates that around 400 callers may have been unable to reach emergency services, and I know you're still checking on that.
The outage lasted for almost seven hours.
Once the outage was discovered, why were calls to the affected facility not rerouted to the Brooklyn facility?
PSAC 1 and PSAC 2, supposed to work together.
And why did it take so long to bring them back up?
These are questions that we need answered so that we can ensure that this never happens again.
And if it does,
that we are better positioned to respond.
We cannot leave New Yorkers without access to emergency services for hours on end, as we know.