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Officials in South Dakota, Nevada and Las Vegas said 911
services had been restored, but without identifying the cause of
the failure.
The Department of Homeland Security has warned of increased
risks of cyber attacks on 911 services as they have migrated to
digital systems based on Internet Protocol standards.
Several cyberattacks targeting 911 systems have taken down the
services in recent years, one of which, in 2017, paralyzed 911
centers in more than a dozen states.
The department of public safety in South Dakota, police in Las
Vegas, the Nebraska county of Douglas and the Texas city of Del
Rio had all reported 911 outages on Wednesday evening.
Del Rio police said the outage stemmed from an issue with a
major cellular carrier, rather than civic systems.
Later, the Las Vegas police said their 911 service had been
restored, with everyone who called during the outage having been
called back and given assistance. Nevada police also said
services were back up in the southern part of the state.
Authorities had also asked people not to call 911 as a test.
Requests for comment from the transportation department's office
of emergency medical services, where the national 911 program is
housed, were not immediately returned, nor were those sent to
the Federal Communications Commission.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency also did not respond to
requests for comment.
(Reporting by Abinaya Vijayaraghavan in Bengaluru; Additional
reporting by Brad Brooks in Longmont, Colorado; Additional
reporting by Mrinmay Dey, Niluptal Timsina and Devika Nair in
Bengaluru; Editing by Michael Perry and Clarence Fernandez)
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