Representative image showing police vehicles in the US
Credit: iStock Photo
Emergency services on the 911 telephone call line were restored late on Wednesday in parts of the United States, officials said, following a widespread outage across all of South Dakota and in parts of Nebraska, Nevada and Texas.
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.