Breakdown Halts Emergency Calls : Communications: A power surge knocked out the Sheriff’s Department’s dispatch center for two hours.

A power surge triggered a “neural breakdown” in the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department’s communication center Tuesday morning, halting all emergency calls and radio dispatches for nearly two hours and prompting calls for a major overhaul of the system.

The communications center in Kearny Mesa, which takes service calls and forwards them to patrol officers, shut down about 10:15 a.m.

When a backup power source also failed, three dispatchers sat at a card table at a makeshift communications center in El Cajon and attempted to take as many calls as possible.

“We’re flat on our backs. It’s simply a neural breakdown,” department spokesman Dan Greenblat reported while the computers were still down. “There are probably people in serious situations in this community who cannot get help.”

By noon, the system was repaired and back in order, but 57 emergency 911 calls had been diverted to the San Diego Police Department. In turn, San Diego police called dispatchers by telephone, who then phoned sheriff’s substations to pass the calls along.

All other calls, considered less serious, were taken down and put aside until the system was back in shape.

“We’ve had problems with communications before, usually losing one frequency or so, but not on this scale. Not the entire county,” said Lt. Octavia Collins of the Lemon Grove substation. “It’s pretty scary.”

Officials were not immediately able to determine whether the delay in transmitting 911 calls led to any life-threatening situations. Nor were they able to say how many nonemergency calls were set aside, although the department usually receives 150 to 200 calls each hour.

A spokesman for San Diego Gas & Electric Co. said the company tracked down a one-second “dip” in a power line about 2 to 3 miles north of its Mission Valley facility about 10:15 a.m.

Although they were unable to determine an exact cause, officials speculated that the wind caused the temporary disruption.

“Normally, hospitals and law enforcement agency folks . . . are supposed to have adequate backup to handle emergency calls and proper electrical protection systems that compensate for momentary voltage fluctuations,” said David Kusumoto, an SDG&E; spokesman. “They cannot afford not to.”

The breakdown focused new attention on the department’s aging communications center, which has been in operation nine years and has had recent operational difficulties. Last week, Sheriff Jim Roache blamed the outdated system for his deputies’ inability to communicate with officers from other agencies during a high-speed chase in North County.

The radio system operates on the 400-megahertz band and most agencies have upgraded to 800 megahertz, which makes radio transmissions and dispatch calls far more quickly.

The San Diego Police Department recently installed such a system at a cost of $35 million, $25 million of which came from a voter-approved bond issue in 1990. The other $10 million came from city funding approved by the San Diego City Council.

An internal review of the communications system prepared for Roache in June concluded it is “marginally capable” of taking 650,000 calls a year, “aging into obsolescence at every level” and “vulnerable to disasters at its most critical point, the Communications Center itself.”

All channel frequencies are full and cannot be expanded, the location of the communications center in Kearny Mesa is “unsafe” in case of a major earthquake and the lack of a backup communications system would be “devastating” in a major emergency, the report says.

The equipment in the system “will be increasingly failure-prone and maintenance-intensive as the decade progresses, which will create deputy safety problems and increased cost to the county,” according to the report.

An independent study in 1988 by the engineering firm Morrison-Knudsen determined that the communications system had an 8.4% chance of staying in operation after a “maximum credible” earthquake. It also said the structure had a 30% chance of staying intact.

Related to the poor system is a 24% turnover in personnel who are frustrated with the inadequacies of the communications center, Roache said.

Roache is in the midst of a budget crunch, and Tuesday he placed a new communications system third on a list of priorities that are preceded by new jail space and a new headquarters for administrators.

The money is nowhere in the county’s budget, however, said David Janssen, assistant county administrative officer.

“Clearly we have to have an operating communications system,” he said. “We need to fix what is broken immediately and need an adequate backup system. Whether a brand-new facility is affordable is going to take a great deal more study. Right now, the county budget cannot pay for a brand-new system.”