Cut fiber line leads to Boone County EMS calls being rerouted on Tuesday
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Boone County Joint Communications stopped receiving 911 and 311 calls around 10 a.m. Tuesday after a fiber line was cut, according to a Wednesday press release.
Service was restored by midnight, the release states. BCJC was notified of the disruption by Brightspeed – and phone and internet provider -- and the reason for the disruption was a fiber being cut in the area, according to the release.
The release states that calls were rerouted to a backup Public Safety Answering Point at the Jefferson City Police Department.
“Boone County Joint Communications’ staff responded to assist at the JCPD PSAP. The fail over system for 9-1-1 calls is tested routinely and is also utilized during periods of high call volume,” the release says.
The Ashland Police Department wrote in a Tuesday evening social media post that a number of calls to 911 and 311 were routed to other counties. The post stated that at least one resident that needed a police response did not receive one.
Columbia Police Department spokeswoman Jenny Hopper told ABC 17 News in an email that department phones were down for several hours on Tuesday, but could not speak on Joint Communications issues. Hopper wrote that she was not aware of any delayed-response times involving Columbia police.
City spokeswoman Sydney Olsen wrote in an email that the city experienced an outage with Brightspeed.
The outage also affected some area businesses. Brent Dodson, owner of Automotive Garage of Columbia, told ABC 17 News on Tuesday evening that his business began experiencing an outage at 11:30 a.m. and could not make outgoing calls using Brightspeed’s service.
The outage was still ongoing when Dodson called ABC 17 News around 10 p.m., but it came back on Wednesday morning, Dodson said.
“Brightspeed didn’t appear to be forthcoming about the problem… They acted like that nothing was wrong (when I called),” Dodson said. “We even went to their website to see if there were outages, and it didn’t show outages. We went to a separate system, I think it was called Downdetector, and it showed an issue.”
Downdector indicates the peak of the outage was around 8 p.m. Tuesday.
ABC 17 News reached out to the Columbia Fire Department on Tuesday evening.
