No cause for the service interruption has been publicly identified. However, in Texas, the Del Rio Police Department said the problem was caused by “an outage at a major cell phone carrier.” The department did not name the carrier or immediately respond to a request for comment overnight from The Post for further details.
THE South Dakota Department of Public Safety tweeted that he was “aware of a statewide disruption in 911 service.” He urged people to text 911 and advised people not to test the 911 number.
South Dakota Highway Patrol later tweeted that “service has been restored to South Dakota’s 911 system,” adding, “Our emergency system is fully operational and ready to respond quickly to any situation.” Your safety is our top priority.
THE Las Vegas Metropolitan Police reported outage affecting 911 calls from landlines, as well as its non-emergency phone line, Wednesday evening. He urged people to call from a mobile device so they can be called back, or to text 911. About two hours later, phone service had been restored and “everyone who called during the outage was called back and provided assistance.
Meanwhile, the Nevada State Police Outages were reported affecting emergency services in southern Nevada for approximately 90 minutes Wednesday evening.
In Texas, the Del Rio Police Department said it was “aware of an outage at a major wireless carrier affecting the ability to reach 911. This issue is with the carrier and not with the carrier’s systems.” the town of Del Rio. … If you cannot reach 911 via mobile, please use a landline or another carrier.
In Nebraska, officials reported outages in various counties. Officials in Douglas County in eastern Nebraska said “a partial statewide 911 outage was reported,” with users “reporting a rapid busy tone when calling.” ‘call,’ while the Buffalo County Sheriff’s Office urged those affected to call non-emergency numbers instead. In southwest Nebraska, the Dundy County Sheriff’s Office also directed people to its administrative hotline. He later said cellular and landline 911 service had been restored.
The outages come during National Public Safety Telecommunications Week, which celebrates the work of emergency hotline workers across the United States.
Under normal circumstances, 911 calls are handled by trained public safety dispatchers. In the United States, some 240 million calls are made to 911 each year, according to the National Emergency Number Association. About 80 percent comes from wireless devices rather than landlines.
The Federal Communications Commission said As of Thursday, he was “aware of reports of 911-related outages and we are currently investigating.” The Department of Homeland Security has not yet commented on the latest outages.
In February, AT&T outages affected more than 1.7 million customers in the United States, impacting 911 centers in California, North Carolina and Texas. The centers asked customers to use a landline for emergency calls or find a cell phone using a different carrier. AT&T said the interrupted services were not caused by a cyberattack but by an error it made while expanding its network.
Last year, Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia, also experienced problems with their 911 systems, preventing residents from making voice calls to the emergency line.
In 2014, emergency telephone services failed for more than 11 million people in seven states. All of Washington state was disconnected from 911, where 4,500 emergency calls went unanswered during an eight-hour period, according to the chairman of the state’s public utilities commission. A Federal Communications Commission study later found that an avoidable software error was responsible for disrupting 911 service.
washingtonpost
