A system-wide failure of the CREST radio system late last year left all Greater Victoria emergency responders without dispatch services for 40 minutes, forced Victoria police to ignore lower-priority calls and prompted Jamie Graham, Victoria police chief at the time, to deem the situation “nothing short of a catastrophe,” according to freedom-of-information documents obtained by the Times Colonist.
On Sept. 20, Victoria police Sgt. Glenn Vermette wrote an email to duty officers warning of the “full failure” of the CREST system. “Failure occurred approximately 20 minutes ago and is affecting ALL emergency services on the CREST network. On duty VicPD members are being recalled to HQ to re-deploy in two-person units with at least one cellphone or mike phone.”
The radio outage occurred between 10:48 a.m. and 11:07 a.m., and again from 11:49 a.m. to 12:13 p.m.
CREST stands for Capital Region Emergency Service Telecommunications.
In an email to Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin and Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins on Sept. 22, Graham wrote: “What our comm centre people and frontline officers have been going through in the past two weeks with our radio situation is nothing short of a catastrophe. For a couple of complete shift[s], all ‘less than priority’ calls were ignored, all constables were doubled up in cars, we were dispatching by cellphones where officers had to return to the office just to get intelligence information.”
CREST general manager Gord Horth said both the main audio switch and the backup switch at its master site failed, which had never happened before.
“It was a surprise,” Horth said. “It was an unpleasant experience for everybody, for sure, on that day.” Horth said audio cards were replaced and he had a meeting with emergency-service providers to assure them the problem won’t happen again.
The incident was the first system-wide failure the radio system has experienced in 10 years and 100,000 hours of operation, Horth said. “Even though you have lots of redundancy, there are situations where you do lose operation.”
Details about the failure add context to Graham’s comments in late November to Victoria and Esquimalt councillors that the “dangerous” CREST system was an “absolute disgrace” and putting officers at risk.
Victoria police have long complained of spotty coverage, dead zones and poor reception in the downtown core and underground parking areas. As a result, officers have been forced to patrol in pairs because of concerns that they would not be able to call for backup if radios fail in an emergency.
On Nov. 12, an officer pushed her emergency button during a struggle with a suspect. Neither of the two officers involved was able to communicate with a dispatcher.
A dispatch failure also plagued B.C. Ambulance for prolonged periods three days in a row, but the ambulance service said it was able to switch to a VHF radio system and no calls were affected.
B.C. Ambulance dispatch experienced difficulties with CREST dispatch on Sept. 20 between 11:30 a.m. and 1:45 p.m., on Sept. 21 between 10 and 10:50 a.m., and for three hours between 6 and 9 a.m. on Sept. 22.
Horth said while the timing was coincidental, the outages that affected only B.C. Ambulance on Sept. 21 and 22 were caused by an issue different from the one that caused the region-wide outage. A problem with a dispatch console at B.C. Ambulance’s new dispatch centre in Langford was to blame for incidents on Sept. 21 and 22.
Esquimalt Coun. David Hodgins, a former B.C. fire commissioner, said the public should be “very concerned” about these radio problems.
“The radios are a lifeline,” Hodgins said. “To not have the ability to connect with dispatch, it’s serious. I find it frustrating because I continue to hear from people on the street that [radio] systems aren’t working.”
In 2015, a new 700-MHz spectrum, set aside for public-safety workers, will be added to the existing VHF radio spectrum, Horth said. That, he said, will provide better coverage for urban emergency responders.
