METROTECH — The city's emergency dispatch system — which prioritizes 911 calls and assigns emergency calls to ambulance teams — went down Monday afternoon for nearly two hours, sources said.
The dispatch system, which has been plagued with problems in the past, went dark about 2:30 p.m., forcing dispatchers to write 911 calls down on paper then call Emergency Service Technicians over the radio with the details, multiple sources confirmed.
"They're giving jobs over the radio. They have no choice they have to write them down on paper," an FDNY source said.
The fire department kept additional dispatchers working past their quitting time to help with the outage, sources said.
The system was back online at about 4:10 p.m., sources said.
Fire department spokesman Jim Long confirmed the outage, but had no immediate information on the cause of the outage.
"We haven't had outages for a while," he said.
The mayor's office did not immediately respond for comment.
Problems with dispatch system were responsible for the death of two half siblings in the Far Rockaways, the Department of Investigation found.
