What If You Dialed 911 and Couldn’t Get Through?

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You can also file this under, “No one does proper systems design anymore.” UPDATE: Miscommunication is to blame for the 5 hour outage in NC Friday morning.

Redundancy? That’s expensive. Besides, the network is ALWAYS there. Until it isn’t.

So they needed to relocate fiber optic cables because a bridge is being built. So far so good. These kinds of things happen. Which means, the people who build critical infrastructure need to be aware of single points of failure. Of course the people doing the moving of communications infrastructure should figure out if it is CRITICAL to public safety before the pull the plug. But all that documentation is hard to go thru, and how critical can it be, anyway? Oh, it is just the ability of a big part of North Carolina to reach 911. What could go wrong?

911 services in six North Carolina counties and the Cherokee Tribal reservation have been restored after a five-hour outage.

I hope no one had a heart attack, or had to deal with an attacker overnight.

Calling 911 is a fine thing to do, but you should be aware that the system isn’t perfect. You should have a plan B.

4 thoughts on “What If You Dialed 911 and Couldn’t Get Through?”

  1. For a lot of us “911 unavailable” is no big deal because we’d deal with crime issues on our own anyway and call 911 as a CYA and “clean-up on aisle 3” measure; unfortunately, it also means probably no help is coming for fires and medical emergencies.

    Then again, those who prepared (strange concept, I know) also have the non-emergency numbers and the direct dial-in number for the nearest two fire houses (and nearest ER, they might have other comm paths available), recorded in permanent ink on laminated portable cellulose as well as in their phones.

    Which may not be much help, depending on how enthusiastic the fiber-severing exercise was….

    Liked by 1 person

    • I’m prepared for a lot of things, but I can’t fight a house fire, if the fire extinguisher in the kitchen (or wherever) can’t put it out. Then I need help. But most of America is not prepared for anything. They are shocked and appalled when they end up somewhere they can’t get cell service.

      I also wish that people who build 911 Call Centers would address redundancy when they specify their telecommunications connection. Even if the people working for the phone or cable company know what is critical, some joker on a backhoe can plow up the cable in a couple of minutes. That also shouldn’t disrupt 911 service because it is a completely foreseeable event. It happens all the time.

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