Residents of four states experienced 911 outages on Wednesday, impacting emergency calls in parts of Nevada, Nebraska, Texas and the entire state of South Dakota.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said Wednesday night that 911 calls from landlines were not working and instructed residents to use mobile devices to dial. The service was restored after two hours.
“All of the individuals who called during the outage have been called back and provided assistance,” the police said on social media platform X. “Non-emergency calls are also working.”
A few counties in Nebraska faced outages.
Buffalo County Sheriff’s Office told residents to dial nonemergency numbers. Dundy County Sheriff’s Office instructed people to use the administrative line, later updating that both landline and cellular 911 services were back on. Douglas County said there was a “partial statewide outage” of 911 calls. They provided an alternative number as some users heard a “fast busy signal when calling.”
The outages came during National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, which highlights “the important work being done by emergency telecommunication teams across the country.”
An estimated 240 million are made to 911 each year, according to the National Emergency Number Association.
Del Rio Police Department in Texas said it was aware of the outages late Wednesday.
“This issue is with the carrier and not the City of Del Rio systems,” it said on Facebook. “Our emergency services remain operational.”
The South Dakota Department of Public Safety said the outage impacted residents throughout the state. They said that texting 911 was still operational “in most locations.”
County sheriff offices and local police could still be reached on their nonemergency lines.
A few hours later, the South Dakota Highway Patrol said service had been restored.
The Federal Communications Commission said on X it was aware of the outages and is investigating the matter.
Tyler Mitchell