http://www2.startribune.com/stOnLine/cgi-bin/article?thisStory=81331834

Published Sunday, January 30, 2000

Emergency 911 service disrupted in parts of metro-area counties

Emergency telephone service was disrupted in parts of the Twin Cities area Saturday morning, keeping 911 calls in several communities from getting through to dispatchers.

U S West officials said a downtown Minneapolis 911 switch, -- equipment that sorts and routes calls -- malfunctioned at about 7:40 a.m. The cause of the malfunction was a software problem related to an equipment upgrade, a company spokeswoman said.

Service in parts of Hennepin, Ramsey, Anoka, Carver, Scott and Washington counties was disrupted, officials said. It's not known whether authorities were unable to respond to any emergencies because of the disruption. Area 911 calls were routed through another switch until service could be restored.

Some departments routed calls to emergency operators through their regular seven-digit numbers. And U S West officials encouraged anyone who may have trouble getting through on 911 to call the regular switchboard numbers for local police and fire departments.

Officials said that the problem was corrected and that by 2 p.m. they no longer needed to reroute calls.

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), January 31, 2000

Answers

Thanks Homer!

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), January 31, 2000.

"The cause of the malfunction was a software problem related to an equipment upgrade, a company spokeswoman said."

Kinda says it all, doesn't it?

-- Duke1983 (Duke1983@aol.com), January 31, 2000.