LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Hundreds of people called 911 during an outage in the Las Vegas area last week.
The outage was nearly three hours and impacted multiple states, including Nevada, Nebraska and South Dakota. Multiple agencies in Southern Nevada told residents to utilize the “text to 911″ service during the outage while they worked out the issue.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police said there were 804 emergency calls placed to 911 on April 17 from 6 p.m.-8:45 p.m., during the outage. There were 33 requests sent to “text to 911″ services during the same timeframe.
LVMPD said the call volume during the outage was on par with typical call volume during that time period. The usage of “text 911″ increased slightly during the outage.
LVMPD said at least ten callers dialed 911 during the outage to “test” whether it was working.
The outage was due to a Lumen Technologies fiber line being cut in Kansas City, Missouri during light pole maintenance, Lumen global issues director Mark Molzen said in an email. FOX5 asked Lumen Technologies why so many states were impacted from the fiber line being cut and how the system is connected from state-to-state.
The Federal Communications Commission said it was investigating the outage.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Copyright 2024 KVVU. All rights reserved.
