Law enforcement agencies in four states were left scrambling following reports of major 911 outages that left millions of people unable to contact authorities Wednesday evening.
Many outages – reported in Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota and Texas – were restored by late evening.
So far, there is no indication that the outages were caused by a cyberattack or other malicious act, law enforcement officials told NBC News on Thursday.
As the Federal Communications Commission continues to investigate, the outages appear to be linked to Lumen Technologies, a spokesperson for the communications and telecommunications company said.
On Wednesday, some customers in Nevada, South Dakota and Nebraska “experienced an outage” when a third-party company, unrelated to Lumen, “physically cut our fiber” while “installing a utility pole.” lighting,” said company spokesman Mark Molzen.
“We had all services restored in about two and a half hours,” he said. Lumen does not provide 911 services in Texas, Molzen added.
“Our technicians identified the problem and worked hard to resolve it as quickly as possible,” he said. “We apologize for the inconvenience caused and appreciate our customers’ patience and understanding.”
Wednesday’s outage follows a widespread AT&T outage in February that left thousands without service in several states and affected some 911 calls for hours, which the carrier said was likely due to a process error and not a cyberattack.
Local law enforcement agencies On Wednesday, a complete blackout was reported across the state of South Dakota shortly before 7 p.m. local time (9 p.m. ET). Rapid City police offered residents alternative phone numbers to call first responders, and the service was restored about two hours later.
South Dakota Department of Public Safety said Wednesday evening, that “texting 9-1-1 works in most places” as a way to contact authorities.
Sioux Falls Deputy Fire Chief Mike Gramlick said in a news conference Thursday that the outage was confirmed at 7:59 p.m. local time and was restored to full capacity at 10:38 p.m. .
“During the duration of the outage, Metro Communications received 112 calls for service” that were able to be transmitted through open line numbers and by texting 911, he said.
Gramlick added: “For reference, typically during the same time of day and week, Metro Communications takes 114 calls. To our knowledge, we have never experienced an outage of this magnitude or duration.
The city also issued a wireless emergency alert to notify the public of the 911 system outage. Officials said they do not know the cause, but the “service provider” is investigating the matter.
In Douglas County, Nebraska, officials echoed Lumen’s statement regarding cutting fiber.
Lumen Technologies told Douglas County 911 that “there was a fiber outage, but they did not disclose the location of the damage,” said Kathy Allen, Douglas County 911 director. The agency’s service was “fully restored” as of 4 a.m. Thursday, Allen said.
In Nevada, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police said around 7 p.m. local time (10 p.m. ET) that “a 911 outage impacted your ability to contact us at this time.” Residents were told to call 911 on their mobile devices, which the dispatcher was able to see and call back, and said calls from landlines “are NOT working at this time.”
Calls were working again at 9 p.m. (midnight ET). “Everyone who called during the outage was called back and provided assistance,” the department said.
Some agencies said the problem was with wireless carriers.
Sarpy County 911 Nebraska shared on As of Wednesday evening, “some wireless carriers are unable to reach 911.” The case was resolved about three hours later.
Police in Del Rio, Texas, wrote on social media Wednesday evening that the problem was with “the carrier and not the city of Del Rio’s systems.”
The problem appears to be with T-Mobile service, Juan Hernandez, the department’s communications supervisor, said Thursday morning.
“Everyone who is a T-Mobile customer had problems using their phone,” Hernandez said. “It was nothing on our end, there was no 911 outage, it was a T-Mobile coverage outage.”
He said T-Mobile was alerted by customers to issues Wednesday evening and those were ultimately resolved. No injuries or serious issues have been reported in connection with the service interruption.
However, the Chase County Sheriff’s Office said “911 was down across the state of Nebraska” for all cell phone carriers except T-Mobile, and landlines were down. still able to reach 911.
An AT&T spokesperson said Thursday: “Our network is operating normally. There appears to be an issue on another carrier’s network that may have affected 9-1-1 calls.
The carrier also said the disruption was “not a FirstNet issue,” referring to the government-commissioned National Public Safety Broadband Network built by AT&T. The network is overseen by the First Responder Network Authority, an independent agency within the Department of Commerce.