Last updated: October 23, 2026, 1:54 AM ET. This is a news report on the October 22 outages. Riverside County and Santa Barbara service was restored Thursday evening; Oakland’s restoration was still unconfirmed Friday morning.
On Thursday, 22 October 2026, 911 service ran into trouble in three parts of California: Riverside County and the Coachella Valley, Oakland, and Santa Barbara. The disruption was partial and carrier-specific, not a total 911 blackout. Some cellphone users, mainly on AT&T and T-Mobile, could not reach dispatchers, while others could still dial 911. If 911 will not connect where you are, call the local dispatch number for your area from the table below, and do not call 911 just to test whether it works.
Update, October 23: 911 service in Riverside County and Santa Barbara was restored on Thursday evening, October 22. Riverside County’s alert around 5 p.m. said services were fully restored, Indio’s lines were back at 4:11 p.m., and Palm Springs’ lines were restored around 5 p.m.; Santa Barbara’s T-Mobile and AT&T lines were also restored Thursday. The alternate numbers below remain the published fallback if 911 fails again, and T-Mobile customers still having trouble were advised to use their local non-emergency line. The cause is no longer unknown for Oakland: Oakland police and AT&T said Thursday that cut fiber-optic and copper lines knocked out the police dispatch center, and police are investigating the damage as a possible criminal act, with vandalism and theft of fiber and copper wires suspected. Oakland police had hoped to have dispatch service back Thursday evening; no restoration had been confirmed in reports checked Friday morning. The causes of the Riverside County and Santa Barbara disruptions are still unconfirmed.
What should you do if 911 won’t connect in California?
If 911 will not connect in Riverside County, Oakland or Santa Barbara, call your local dispatch number directly instead of redialing 911, use text-to-911 where officials confirm it works, and do not place test calls. Oakland’s outage came from cut fiber and copper lines, now under criminal investigation; the Riverside County and Santa Barbara causes are still unconfirmed.
- Call the dispatch number for your city from the table below instead of redialing 911.
- Send a text to 911 in Palm Springs or Santa Barbara if officials confirm the service works there.
- Avoid test calls to 911 because even unconnected calls can generate callbacks for busy dispatchers.
- Check official city or sheriff channels for restoration updates before assuming 911 service has returned.
Alternate numbers officials published
The table below is TechReview’s compilation of the alternate numbers officials published on 22 October 2026. Use the number for the area you are calling from.
| Area | Call this number instead | Status reported |
|---|---|---|
| Riverside County Sheriff | 951-776-1078 | County alert issued around 6 a.m. local time |
| Palm Springs dispatch | 760-327-1441 | Text-to-911 also available |
| Indio police and fire | 760-775-3730 | City 911 lines down around 3:30 a.m. local time |
| Cathedral City dispatch | 760-770-0300 | Disruptions affecting AT&T and T-Mobile customers |
| Desert Hot Springs dispatch | 760-329-2904 | City 911 reported working |
| Santa Barbara dispatch (24/7) | 805-882-8900 | Text-to-911 reported unaffected |
A note on the Riverside County number: the Sheriff’s official alert gave 951-776-1078. A different number, (951) 776-1278, appeared on a La Quinta city page during the outage. If you see 1278 anywhere, use the Sheriff’s 1078 number instead: that is the one in the official alert.
What happened in each city
Riverside County and the Coachella Valley. Cellphone users in parts of Riverside County had trouble reaching 911 dispatchers on Thursday, and the county issued a public safety alert around 6 a.m. local time advising anyone who could not reach 911 to call 951-776-1078 instead. The Palm Springs Police Department issued an alert around 2 a.m. local time warning that T-Mobile customers may have trouble reaching 911, and said residents who could not connect should call its dispatch line at 760-327-1441, with text-to-911 still available in Palm Springs. The Indio Police Department said the city’s 911 emergency phone lines went down around 3:30 a.m. local time, and residents needing police or fire assistance were told to call 760-775-3730. Cathedral City police confirmed disruptions to the city’s 911 service affecting AT&T and T-Mobile customers, and gave its dispatch line as 760-770-0300. Desert Hot Springs police said its 911 system remained fully operational, despite awareness of wireless disruption reports affecting AT&T and T-Mobile customers.
The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office told Gizmodo it learned of the outage earlier on Thursday morning. It said it was unknown what caused the outage on the cellular service provider’s network or how long it would last, and that some cellphone users in Riverside County were still able to dial 911 because the law-enforcement telecommunications side of the network continued to function normally. A Gizmodo reporter calling the sheriff’s non-emergency line was told “there’s issues” with the 911 service but “it’s not completely out”.
Oakland. The Oakland Police Department posted to Facebook on Thursday that its Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) system froze and displayed an error message around 8:30 p.m. local time on Wednesday, 21 October. By 9:45 p.m., all 911 calls were being transferred to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office and to Oakland fire dispatch, and dispatchers were relocated to the fire dispatch center and the sheriff’s dispatch center. Police Chief James Beere said the department had two fallback systems in place, but both were compromised during the outage, and police were responding only to Priority One calls. The city’s IT department was working with AT&T to restore internet and phone services, and police had hoped to have dispatch service back Thursday evening.
What kept working matters here. Fire and medical dispatch were not knocked out: fire crews kept responding to 911 fire and medical calls, and fire dispatchers could handle all fire and medical calls Thursday morning. The outage did hit the city’s OAK311 non-emergency line, so non-emergencies were routed to email at OAK311@oaklandca.gov instead, while infrastructure emergencies like flooding or a downed power line were still to be reported by calling 911.
On the cause, Oakland police and AT&T said Thursday that both copper and fiber-optic lines were cut, and police are investigating the damage as a possible criminal act. AT&T said vandalism and theft of fiber and copper wires are suspected. City IT Director Tony Batalla said AT&T had determined that fiber-optic lines were damaged Wednesday evening, and Chief Beere said copper lines were also found compromised across the city. That makes Oakland’s cause the clearest of the three disruptions: cut lines, with theft and vandalism suspected but not yet proven.
Santa Barbara. The Santa Barbara Police Department said that if residents were unable to reach 911 they should call its 24/7 Dispatch Center directly at 805-882-8900 for emergency assistance. Gizmodo, citing local outlet KEYT, reported the Santa Barbara outages appeared to be impacting AT&T and T-Mobile customers, and that text-to-911 did not appear to be impacted there.
Officials urged residents not to call 911 to test the outage. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office public information officer said on Thursday that even unconnected test calls can generate callbacks that take dispatchers away from emergencies.
Timeline: three separate reports, hours apart
The timeline below is TechReview’s reconstruction from the sources cited at the end of this article. All times are local to each city, on 22 October 2026 unless noted.
- Wednesday 21 October, around 8:30 p.m.: Oakland CAD system freezes and shows an error message.
- Wednesday 21 October, around 9:45 p.m.: all Oakland 911 calls transferred to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office and Oakland fire dispatch.
- Thursday 22 October, around 2:00 a.m.: Palm Springs police alert on T-Mobile 911 trouble.
- Thursday 22 October, around 3:30 a.m.: Indio 911 lines go down.
- Thursday 22 October, around 6:00 a.m.: Riverside County public safety alert issued.
- Thursday 22 October, 18:14 UTC (23:44 IST): Gizmodo publishes its three-city roundup.
The Oakland failure predates the Coachella Valley reports by roughly five and a half hours, and the transfer to the county took another 75 minutes after the freeze. That gap alone no longer rules out a shared pattern: AT&T points to fiber damage and suspected theft in both the Oakland case and the Los Angeles-area case, and Gilroy and Morgan Hill also reported cut-line outages to their non-emergency lines the same day. But no source links the Riverside, Oakland and Santa Barbara disruptions to each other, so this article still treats them as three separately reported disruptions, not one statewide outage.
What is confirmed and what is not
Confirmed: 911 trouble for some cellphone users in Riverside County and the Coachella Valley, a CAD failure in Oakland, and 911 trouble in Santa Barbara, all on 22 October 2026 (Oakland’s failure starting late on 21 October). The alternate dispatch numbers in the table above were published by officials, with the Sheriff’s 951-776-1078 as the authoritative Riverside County number. The warning against test calls came from officials. Oakland’s cause is confirmed as cut fiber-optic and copper lines, with a criminal investigation open and vandalism and theft suspected but not proven. Restoration: Riverside County service was fully restored Thursday evening (county alert around 5 p.m.; Indio’s lines back at 4:11 p.m.; Palm Springs’ lines restored around 5 p.m.), and Santa Barbara’s T-Mobile and AT&T lines were restored Thursday. Oakland’s restoration had not been confirmed in reports checked Friday morning, despite police hopes of having dispatch back Thursday evening. Fire and medical dispatch in Oakland kept working throughout, while OAK311 was impacted.
Claimed, now partly corroborated: Cathedral City Officer Joseph Brooks said “the cause appears to be due to a vandalism in Los Angeles”, but he could not confirm whether the suspected vandalism was responsible for the countywide outage. That quote now lines up with AT&T’s own statement that damage to another provider’s fiber, potentially linked to theft, affected 911 routing for some AT&T mobility customers in the Los Angeles area. What is still not established is the link itself: neither Brooks nor AT&T said that Los Angeles damage caused the Riverside County outage.
Not established: whether the Riverside, Oakland and Santa Barbara disruptions are connected to each other, or to the PHP vulnerabilities discussed in cybersecurity circles as “Black October”. Gizmodo states that is unclear, and no source in this article claims a link. No source claims a cyberattack, ransomware, or hack caused any of the three disruptions. No source gives a count of affected callers. AT&T has since issued statements on the Oakland and Los Angeles-area damage; T-Mobile had not responded when Gizmodo reported on Thursday.
What to watch next
Three things will settle the open questions. First, whether Oakland’s dispatch system came back as police hoped Thursday evening, since no restoration had been confirmed in reports checked Friday morning, plus the outcome of the criminal investigation into the cut lines. Second, any statement from T-Mobile, which had not responded when Gizmodo reported on Thursday, and any official statement on the Riverside County and Santa Barbara causes, which remain unconfirmed. Third, any official statement on whether the three disruptions are connected at all. Until officials say so, treat the three disruptions as separate reports.
Sources
- Palm Springs Desert Sun, “Riverside County’s 911 service is down right now. What to know”, 22 Oct 2026 (later updated with the restoration): https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/traffic/2026/10/22/riverside-countys-911-service-is-down-right-now-what-to-know/92378453007/
- MyNewsLA, “Indio, Palm Springs Experiencing Temporary Emergency 911 Line Issue”, 22 Oct 2026 16:42 UTC: https://mynewsla.com/uncategorized/2026/10/22/indio-palm-springs-experiencing-temporary-emergency-911-line-issue/
- Gizmodo, “911 Outages Hit Multiple Cities in California”, 22 Oct 2026 18:14 UTC, updated 2:30 p.m. ET with an AT&T spokesperson statement: https://gizmodo.com/?p=2000829487 (citing the Oakland Police Department Facebook notice and local outlet KEYT for Santa Barbara)
- NBC Palm Springs, “911 Services Restored in Riverside County After Phone Outage”, 22 Oct 2026: https://www.nbcpalmsprings.com/local-and-community/2026/10/22/911-services-restored-in-riverside-county-after-phone-outage
- MyNewsLA, “Temporary 911 Phone Service Operational in Riverside County”, 22 Oct 2026: https://mynewsla.com/business/2026/10/22/temporary-911-phone-service-operational-in-riverside-county/
- 95.3 The Beach, “UPDATE: Santa Barbara Police Department warns residents about 911 outage”, 22 Oct 2026 (update: T-Mobile and AT&T lines restored Thursday): https://953thebeach.com/2026/10/22/santa-barbara-police-department-warns-residents-about-911-outage/
- ABC7 News, “Vandalism, theft of fiber and copper wires suspected in Oakland 911 outage, AT&T spokesperson says”, 22 Oct 2026: https://abc7news.com/19969621/
- KTVU, “Oakland 911 disruption: Police probe potential criminal act as emergency lines fail”, 22 Oct 2026: https://ktvu.com/news/oakland-911-disruption-police-probe-potential-criminal-act-emergency-lines-fail
- KTVU, “911 down in Oakland; emergency calls routed to Alameda County”, 22 Oct 2026: https://ktvu.com/news/911-down-oakland-emergency-calls-routed-alameda-county
- KION, “Oakland 911 system goes down; non-emergency lines for Gilroy, Morgan Hill PD also cut”, 22 Oct 2026: https://kioncentralcoast.com/news/top-stories/2026/10/22/oakland-911-system-goes-down-calls-rerouted-to-alameda-county/
- KION, “Copper wire, fiber optic line damage cuts police phone lines in Oakland, Gilroy, Morgan Hill”, 22 Oct 2026: https://kioncentralcoast.com/news/2026/10/22/copper-wire-fiber-optic-line-damage-cuts-police-phone-lines-in-oakland-gilroy-morgan-hill/
- Police1 (Bay Area News Group), “Oakland dispatch center forced to reroute calls amid technical issues”, 22 Oct 2026: https://www.police1.com/911-and-dispatch/calif-dispatch-center-forced-to-reroute-calls-amid-technical-issues
