OAN’s James Meyers
2:08 PM – Thursday, April 18, 2024
Law enforcement departments in four different states were left figuring out how to get communication back with the public following reports of major 911 outages late on Wednesday.
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The outages ended up being restored during the late evening in Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota, and Texas. However, on Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission said its investigation is just getting started.
“When you call 911 in an emergency, it is vital that call goes through. The FCC has already begun investigating the 911 multi-state outages that occurred last night to get to the bottom of the cause and impact,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has warned of increased risks of cyber attacks for 911 services as most have moved to digital systems that are based on Internet Protocol (IP) standards, making them “more susceptible to a cyber attack.”
In 2017, a major cyber attack took down 911 centers in over a dozen states as the country has continued to fight against cyber attacks.
The department of public safety in South Dakota, Las Vegas police, the Nebraska county of Douglas, and the Texas city of Del Rio had all reported 911 outages on Wednesday evening.
However, later on Thursday night, Las Vegas police announced their 911 service had been restored. All callers who phoned in during the outage were later called back and given assistance as soon as it was restored.
Retired Rear Adm. David Simpson, who served as the chief of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau from 2013 to 2017, commented on the outage.
“There are over 6,000 jurisdictions for 911,” he said, adding that “the decisions made for equipment and budget vary from state to state to state.”
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