Emergency services to 911 telephone call lines were restored late on Wednesday in parts of the United States, officials said, following a widespread outage across all of South Dakota and in parts of Nebraska, Nevada and Texas, Reuters reported. Officials in South Dakota, Nevada and Las Vegas said 911 services had been restored, but didn’t cite the cause of the failure. The FCC said it was aware of reports of outages and is investigating, Reuters reported.
Police in Las Vegas, NV said 911 calls from landlines were temporarily not working, but later restored. It advised the public to dial 911 on their cell phones, explaining the department “will be able to see your number and will call you back right away.” The Henderson Police Department said texts to 911 were functional, according to The National Desk.
In South Dakota, the Rapid City Police Department said Pennington County 911 services were also restored. The department said it was being inundated with calls from people who were testing the system, according to The National Desk. “While the calls themselves aren’t connecting, dispatchers can still see who is attempting to call and the phone number from the caller. Each 911 attempt is getting a call-back from dispatch, however the workload generated from unnecessary calls is hampering their efforts to get appropriate resources where they need to go,” the department noted on Facebook. “PLEASE DON’T CALL 911 UNLESS AN (ACTUAL) EMERGENCY EXISTS.”
In Texas, the Del Rio Police Department said the outage in their area was due to a major cellular carrier, which they did not name, reported Reuters. “This issue is with the carrier and not the City of Del Rio systems. Our emergency services remain operational,” the department wrote on Facebook. “If you cannot reach 911 via your mobile, please use a landline or another carrier. We are actively monitoring the situation and will provide further updates as they become available.”
The outages came as the Department of Homeland Security has warned of increased risks of cyber attacks on 911 services, as they have migrated to digital, internet-protocol-based systems. Several cyberattacks targeting 911 systems have taken down the services in recent years, according to Reuters.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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