Iowa (NorthwestIowaNow.com) — Reports of widespread 911 outage impacted several Northwest Iowa counties on Thursday, forcing dispatch centers to rely on non-emergency lines.
The outage, which began around 2 p-m Thursday, was reportedly caused by a cut fiber optic line affecting Lumen 9-1-1 services.
The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office took to Facebook to alert residents that landline 911 calls and some cell providers were experiencing a broad outage. They provided their non-emergency number as a backup.
The problem affected numerous counties, including several that border Clay County. Officials in Dickinson and Palo Alto counties confirmed their landline 911 calls were not getting through. However, officials in Buena Vista and O’Brien counties reported their systems were working properly. Clay County 911 services were also reported to be operational.
Other affected counties included Woodbury, Sioux, Emmet, Plymouth, and Osceola.
Authorities say in a future outage, if you can’t get through, you should first try calling 911 from a different device, like a cell phone. Texting 9-1-1 is also an option in all 99 Iowa counties. It is always a good idea to have your local sheriff’s non-emergency number saved in your phone.
