A 911 service outage in Iowa left Des Moines and West Des Moines agencies scrambling for backup lines. The Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management said it was notified by the 911 service provider of the outage Monday afternoon.

Outage Details

The department said some of the disruption started around 4:15 p.m. and the 911 service provider mitigated the problem around 5:55 p.m., restoring 911 service. A department spokesperson said the provider reported a multistate service disruption and that officials are working to determine the full scope of the outage.

West Des Moines Assistant Chief of EMS Operations Mark McCulloch said outages like this are highly unusual. “I’ve been with the city for over 20 years, and I just cannot think of very many instances where this has happened,” said McCulloch.

Response and Preparations

First responders said they are prepared for system failures. “We always have a plan for when a system fails,” said Sgt. Paul Parizek of Des Moines police. “It was right around 5 o’clock when we first started noticing that 911 calls coming in from wireless callers were actually going to a status our dispatchers called abandoned.”

Despite the disruption, agencies said calls were still getting through on non-emergency lines. “We always recommend that people store those 10-digit numbers in their phone so that they have those available,” said McCulloch.

The Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management said it is reviewing the outage with the service provider to determine whether any changes are needed to better protect the system in the future.

Original reporting: KCCI Des Moines — read the source article.