City officials outline 911 contingency steps after statewide outage; fire boxes, alternate lines cited as backups

The Boston City Council Committee on Public Safety and Criminal Justice held a hearing Tuesday on ways to ensure continued operation of the 911 system and contingency plans in the event of another outage.

The session centered on a June 18, 2024 statewide NextGen 911 outage that temporarily prevented residents from calling 911. City emergency officials told the committee the outage lasted about two hours, was traced to a firewall malfunction in the state-managed system and prompted multiple local workarounds to maintain emergency response.

Committee chair Councilor Henry Santana opened the hearing by saying the docket would examine operations of the 911 system and contingency planning. "This hearing is being recorded," Santana said at the start of the session.

Why it matters: City officials said the outage exposed dependencies on the Commonwealth's NextGen 911 infrastructure and the private vendor that operates it, and showed how local backups — including Boston's municipal fire alarm boxes and newly installed alternate phone lines — can limit service disruption. Councilors pressed officials on public notification, language access, staffing and training.

Boston EMS Chief James Hooley described how calls flow in the city and what happened during the outage. "When a 911 call is placed in Boston, it's first received at a public safety answering point or the PSAP at Boston Police Department," Hooley said. He told the committee Boston EMS has 440 EMTs and…