A large-scale outage on Wednesday affected the ability of residents in parts of Nebraska and Texas, South Dakota and Las Vegas to call 911, according to local officials.
In Las Vegas, landline phones and cellphones to 911 were disconnected for two hours before service was restored around 9 p.m. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said On social media.
During the outage, police said dispatchers could be seen trying to make calls from cellphones and call residents back, and all attempted calls were answered.
Nevada State Police said the outage also affected southern Nevada.
Outages were also reported by local police departments in Dundy, Kearney and Howard, Nebraska. The trio reported that service was restored on Facebook between 12 midnight and 12:30 am.
The police department in Del Rio, Texas, said customers of a cellular provider were having trouble calling 911. A spokeswoman said the issue affects only T-Mobile customers, and that those customers were not yet served at 1:30 p.m.
South Dakota Department of Public Safety said It has been reported on social media that the power outage has affected people across the state. In most parts of the state, residents can still text 911 and call their local police and county sheriff's offices on their emergency phone lines, the department said. Around 11 pm, the The South Dakota Highway Patrol said The service was restored on social media.
In February, a widespread AT&T outage temporarily knocked out connections for several hours for users across the United States. Firstnet, the emergency communications network, is out of service. Police forces like New York Police Department Unable to make calls or send emails.
