Tag: 911 Call Center

911 Outages Disrupt Emergency Communications In Berkeley County

911 lines were experiencing a temporary outage in Berkeley County, W.Va., leaving residents unable to contact county-level emergency services.

Updated on Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024 at 12 p.m.

Emergency 911 lines in Berkeley County temporarily went down Wednesday morning, leaving residents unable to contact county emergency services.

The first alert was issued at 11:10 a.m. via Berkeley County’s text message alert system. 

News of the outage was then shared on various county social media pages, including the official Facebook page of the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Department.

For less than an hour, residents were unable to use county emergency lines or non-emergency lines linked to the Berkeley County Department of Emergency Communications.

“[Emergency officials] are working to resolve this issue,” stated the post on Facebook prior to the restoration. “Please contact your local fire, police, or EMS in the event of an emergency. We will update as soon as the lines are back up. Law enforcement can be reached at the following numbers: Berkeley County Sheriff’s Dept. 304-267-7000, Martinsburg City Police 304-264-2100 [and] West Virginia State Police 304-267-0000.”

In November, similar outages in other West Virginia counties left residents unable to contact emergency services for up to 10 hours cumulatively.

911 Outages Left 13 Percent Of W.Va. Residents Without Emergency Services For Up To 10 Hours

An agency tasked with operating West Virginia’s 911 centers has filed a complaint against Frontier West Virginia Inc.

On Wednesday, the E911 Council, the umbrella agency that operates 911 centers in the state, filed a complaint against Frontier Communications with the Public Service Commission (PSC).

According to the complaint within the past 24 months, several Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) within the state have experienced lengthy outages of 911 service.

The most recent outage was from Nov. 28 through Nov. 30 where Brooke, Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel, Tyler, Doddridge, Ritchie, Harrison, Taylor and Mingo County residents were unable to call 911 for up to 10 hours.

The Executive Director of the E911 Council, Dean Meadows, said normally during outages calls can be rerouted, but Frontier Communications failed to reroute the calls.

“Because that plan failed, that put 235,000 residents in West Virginia without the ability to call 911,” Meadows said. “So that’s 13 percent of the population for between six to 10 hours could not call 911 in an emergency situation.”

Meadows also pointed out that the outages occurred during hazardous weather conditions in northern West Virginia, endangering those traveling on the state’s interstates.

Meadows said the E911 Council filed the complaint to prevent future outages.

“What’s happened in the past few years is 911 centers have been given a false sense of security, that there’s redundancy and diversity within their centers that if there’s a fiber cut, or vandalism to to the fiber somehow that their centers will still be covered through this redundancy, but we’re finding out, unfortunately, that’s not the case, the redundancy is not there,” Meadows said.

The PSC said it cannot comment on pending investigations.

Vandalism And Wintry Weather Knock Out Phone Service To Emergency Centers In W.Va.

Phone service was knocked out to emergency call centers for several hours in numerous West Virginia counties on Tuesday. Residents in some counties were advised to use alternative business numbers to call during the 911 outage.

Phone service was knocked out to emergency call centers for several hours in numerous West Virginia counties on Tuesday, officials said.

Residents in some counties were advised to use alternative business numbers to call during the 911 outage.

Frontier Communications spokesperson Chrissy Murray said its fiber optic lines experienced two cuts in northern West Virginia, one involving copper vandalism and the other due to damage related to a winter storm.

“The combination of the cuts is what caused the 911 service issue but we worked quickly to restore so that all of our customers had access to emergency services,” Murray said in a statement.

Frontier is planning to offer up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those involved in the copper theft, Murray said, adding that tips should be called in to Frontier and local law enforcement.

While 911 calls were going through Tuesday evening in Kanawha County in the state capital of Charleston, the county sheriff’s office said other phone issues remained unresolved. The problem typically involved calls between Frontier landlines and another carrier’s cell phones. Some callers were experiencing busy signals or no response when dialing the sheriff’s office and other places, the office said in a news release.

The office advised callers to reach it using a landline until the issue is resolved.

Landline Fees Raised in Cabell County to Fund 911 Center

Cabell County residents and businesses with landline phones can expect to see an increase on their phone bills.

The Herald-Dispatch reports that the Cabell County Commission voted Thursday to increase the landline tariff for residential and business lines in order to compensate for an anticipated $43,000 increase in next year’s medical insurance for emergency response employees.

The fee has been raised from $2.50 per month for residential lines to $7 and from $3 for business lines to $9.50.

The emergency response center has only two sources of revenue for their roughly $3 million budget — the fees on landlines and the $3 state fee on wireless plans.

Mike Davis, director of the county response center, says if the fee increase wasn’t passed, five employees would have to be let go.

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