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       The District’s beleaguered 911 center released new data Friday that shows nearly 40 percent of shifts at the facility last month were understaffed, and that multiple callers were kept on hold for three or four minutes.

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       The data, which the agency says it will update monthly, provides rare insight into a D.C. government agency that has acknowledged mistakes and faced allegations of mismanagement. It comes less than a month after emergency responders did not arrive at a flooding dog day-care center for 23 minutes, and 10 dogs drowned in their kennels, a tragedy that intensified criticism of the Office of Unified Communications (OUC).

       The data release was mandated by emergency legislation the D.C. Council passed this summer, which required the office to post the number of call-taker and dispatcher errors and their causes, along with staffing and other information, by the end of August. The Washington Post previously reported that the city had failed to post the data by that time. Nearly 100 neighborhood representatives later sent a letter to city leaders calling for more transparency at the agency.

       D.C. has long struggled with 911 calls. Then 10 dogs died in a flood.

       “Launching the dashboard is an important step toward transparency and accuracy at OUC, our 911 call center,” council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), who chairs the public safety and judiciary committee, said in a statement. “I and my team are reviewing all the data to identify patterns and areas in need of improvement not only in operations but also in the data posted.”

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       Pinto said she plans to question the director of the OUC about 911 operations at an Oct. 5 hearing.

       The data offers a granular look at the emergency response time from Aug. 30 to Sept. 6. In that period, the average answer time — the time it takes a call taker to pick up the phone — was between two and 21 seconds each day, while the maximum answer time was four minutes.

       According to national standards, 90 percent of 911 calls should be answered within 15 seconds. D.C.'s 911 center only hit that 90 percent metric on one of the eight days in the data released Friday.

       After the call-taker answered the phone, it took an average of 57 seconds to an average of nearly two minutes for them to enter the information in a queue so help could be dispatched, depending on the priority level of the call, the data shows. But at times, it took a call-taker almost 15 minutes to make the dispatch request.

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       Over the summer, the 911 center was chronically short-staffed, according to OUC’s data. In July, 22 of 67 shifts did not meet the minimum staffing requirements. In August, 26 of 66 shifts did not meet the minimum.

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       Heather McGaffin, the OUC director who was confirmed earlier this year, has previously acknowledged staffing troubles. The D.C. auditor also found, in a March report, that the center had recruited more than 30 new employees but more than 50 employees had left.

       Residents have been vocal about their frustration with the D.C. government’s response to issues at the 911 center. Families of people who died in cases in which mistakes at the 911 center delayed emergency response have testified at city council hearings, slamming top city officials for failing to take responsibility for breakdowns. And the owners of some of the 10 dogs killed in the flood at District Dogs, who met with D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) about the incident, previously told The Post that the mayor seemed to downplay the botched response.

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       The data dashboard, in a log of 15 complaints reported this summer, also defended 911 center employees for their response to District Dogs.

       “Calls were handled appropriately using the call taking questions available at that time,” the log said. It also said that the OUC had worked with the fire department “to make changes to call taking ques[ti]ons and call type that is selected for inside flooding when people are trapped.”

       Dave Statter, a retired WUSA reporter who closely tracks emergency dispatches, said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that the list of complaints was not complete and the website was “difficult to navigate.”

       Chris Magnus, deputy auditor for public safety in D.C., said it was “not surprising there are concerns about if and how this dashboard answers important questions, if data is provided in a helpful context, and ultimately if what’s provided is even understandable.”

       McGaffin did not respond Friday afternoon to requests for an interview.

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