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County staff report 24-hour 911 outage, say redundancies failed and seek fixes
Summary
Wythe County officials described a 24-hour 911 outage caused by carrier/equipment failure; emergency calls overflowed to Twin County and staff said redundancies did not operate as intended and replacement or reconfiguration of equipment is planned.
County staff told the Wythe County Board of Supervisors about a 24-hour outage of the 911 system that was traced to failed broadband equipment in the county building and said existing redundancies did not operate as expected.
The presenter said county staff and outside vendors engaged with a 911 support office (BDM) and with carriers and call-handling providers during the outage. Because the county's redundancies failed, emergency calls were immediately routed to Twin County, which answered and then had to transfer calls back to Wythe County via a desk phone in the deputy director's office. The presenter called the 24-hour experience "a rough 24 hours for everybody" and said the county has pressed carriers and providers to improve response times for outage reports.
County staff said they have identified weaknesses in redundancies and planned either to repair or replace equipment to reduce the risk of a repeat outage. The presenter said the county expects follow-up work to strengthen redundancies and avoid the same failure points in future.
Why it matters: a sustained 911 outage created risk to public safety, required manual call-transfer workarounds and prompted staff to seek equipment and process changes to restore reliable emergency-call routing.
The board requested more information and staff said they would pursue vendor fixes and equipment changes to prevent recurrence.
