South Sound 911, which serves Pierce County, was one of many 9-1-1 dispatch centers in the state affected by a 9-1-1 outage Thursday. Service in Pierce County was down for approximately six hours before it was restored to the communications center around 6:20 a.m. Citizens experiencing difficulties calling 9-1-1 in an emergency were urged by officials through the news media to call 253-798-4722 or 253-798-4721 at any time. It wasn't immediately known how many callers were affected, officials said. South Sound 911 officials said they are deeply concerned about the outage and the affect it may have had on citizens. "An outage of this magnitude, and so widespread, is a serious matter,GÇ¥ said executive director Andrew Neiditz. "We share the same concerns as our citizens, and we, too, are eager to learn more about what went wrong with the overall system.GÇ¥ South Sound 911 first became aware of a potential problem around midnight when call volumes were unusually low. As is standard practice, dispatchers alerted the on-call communications maintenance supervisor, who confirmed the outage with the service provider. The local supervisor also confirmed that South Sound equipment was operational, Neiditz said. South Sound 911 is collaborating with the Pierce County Department of Emergency Management's E-911 office and other local 9-1-1 to investigate the outage.
Comments
Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.
Sign in to comment