Pennsylvania officials reported statewide issues Friday with the state’s 911 system.
“Pennsylvania is facing a statewide intermittent 911 outage,” stated the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) in an alert on Friday. “Those who encounter difficulties reaching 911 are advised to call their local 911 center using the non-emergency lines. For further details, look up your county’s social media and website.”
Randy Padfield, PEMA’s director, highlighted at a news conference that the disruptions were sporadic and began around 2 p.m., affecting some call deliveries.
PEMA’s 911 team began investigating the issue immediately to “identify the root cause of the issue as a standard practice,” Padfield said.
In cases where a call fails, “individuals should resort to the backup seven-digit administrative line or adhere to the guidance from their local 911 center or public safety answering point,” he mentioned. However, he cautioned against calling 911 merely to check its functionality.
“If they test the system and hang up on the system, that is considered an abandoned call,” he explained. “The 911 centers have to go back and investigate that call. So, we ask for the public’s cooperation. As we continue, we’ll provide additional updates as they become available.”
He said there’s a “tremendous” amount of redundancy built into the Next Gen 911 system.
“We’ve seen it actually perform flawlessly for a lot of severe weather incidents where there are a lot of 911 calls coming into the system,” Padfield said, adding that the situation is more of an “anomaly for us and for the Next Gen 911 service provider.
If the call doesn’t go through, “they should use the backup seven-digit administrative line or follow the instructions of their local 911 center or public safety answering point,” the PEMA director said, urging people not to call 911 just to test if it’s working. (Getty)
“We want to resolve it in the shortest amount of time possible.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said on X Friday that he had been briefed by PEMA on the “intermittent 911 outage currently happening in some parts of Pennsylvania. We are on top of the issue and working to restore full service as quickly as possible. In the meantime — stay calm, follow the directions of PEMA and local authorities, and do not call 911 for any reason other than an emergency.”
