911 service restored in Washington after statewide outage

[Generic Other]

SEATTLE - CenturyLink says 911 service has been completely restored in Washington state after an overnight outage knocked out the emergency call system that millions of residents depend on.

Spokeswoman Kerry Zimmer says the problem began about 1:30 a.m. Thursday at Sheridan, Ore., and Oregon was affected for a time. It was restored earlier in Oregon, but service remained out in some parts of Washington state until about 8 a.m.

Another spokeswoman, Jan Kampbell, says technicians worked all morning to solve the problem. CenturyLink provides the service statewide because the dispatch centers are all tied together.

Service began to be partially restored in some areas by about 6 a.m., and was completely restored about two hours later.

During the outage, the problem was intermittent. Some calls were going through and others were not. A list of emergency phone numbers was issued for callers who could not get through on 911.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/911-Outage--254696091.html

At noon today, I got a call from some emergency recording giving me alternate numbers to call in an emergency. I had never heard of the 911 system going out like that before. Is this common in any other states?

Good thing there were no big emergencies overnight.

[freeplessinseattle]

1. As far as we know there were no major emergencies-but some people may still be prone on the floor

I was worried about my grandfather when I heard this, he has heart problems and I've heard most or a lot of heart attacks happen in the early morning hours!

[Generic Other]

2. I also was worried about my mother

but only after the fact as I didn't know the system was down.

[freeplessinseattle]

3. last night really wished I wasn't such an insomniac!

When will I ever learn not to read or watch the news in the wee hours?

[MFM008]

4. i thought it was a crank call

911 has never gone down. I almost had to call them yesterday when I had an allergy attack. Wow.
next time ill know.