911 service outage in several states

Last week on the night of Wednesday, April 17th, dispatchers in Douglas County noticed problems with incoming 911 calls. 911 officials noticed how dispatchers were not able to connect with calls that were being made. Eventually, the main cause of the disturbances with the 911 system was found not long after. Problems with the system were caused due to the installation of a new light pole which resulted in a cut in the fiber-optic cable owned by the telecommunication company Lumen. This fiber optic cable is also used by 911 services. Thankfully, during the outage, dispatchers were able to locate the locations of 911 calls, made possible by the RapidSOS technology, and return calls. The county had to resort to providing the 911 emergency center’s non-emergency number, 402-444-5802, during the outage. Other Nebraska counties that were affected were Sarpy, Lincoln, Dundy and Howard.

In a press conference held on Thursday, Kyle Kramer, technical manager of Douglas County, said “We don’t believe there were any calls that were missed.” Kramer also stated that not everyone was affected by the outage as some individuals were still able to make 911 calls. Individuals in Buffalo and Kearny counties using Verizon as their provider were still able to make calls.

At the same time, problems with the 911 system were also experienced in other states such as Nevada, Texas and South Dakota. In South Dakota, Mayor of Sioux Falls Paul TenHaken commented on the 911 outage, “It's obviously never ideal but I will say that our preparations and our ability to adapt to what happened last night quickly ensure that our public safety services continue to be delivered without that knowledge.” In Texas, the outages only affected mobile cellular devices.

Because of the situation, the Nebraska Public Service Commission (PSC) has launched an investigation as well as the Federal Communication Commission. Nebraska state senator John Fredrickson commented saying “Some would say even one outage is one too many. So, any outages in 911 or something that we don't accept.” Fredrickson is also pushing for companies to build better infrastructure to avoid repeating what had just happened. “I'll be clear, I'm going to be watching this like a hawk, as I had been this last year, and continue to look at what resolutions need to happen to ensure that not only Nebraskans have the emergency protections they need, but that our first responders have the support that they need,” stated Fredrickson.

The 911 issue was resolved and connections were resolved on Thursday morning.

By Robert Tengker