Emergency 911 service has been restored for the state of Washington after an outage affected dispatch centers throughout the state and parts of Oregon.
The lines were restored in Washington and Oregon after separate, but unrelated problems, according to CenturyLink.
The company has not determined a cause for the disrupted service which started around 1:30 a.m. Thursday, according to spokeswoman Kerry Zimmer.
Officials with the Washington State Patrol acknowledge there were 911 calls placed that did not get through.
Sgt. Jason Hicks of WSP said once the outage was apparent, the state’s 911 centers began to talk to one another. Messages went out via social media and other electronic notification regarding the outage and what numbers to call.
But he recognizes that not everyone got the message.
Hicks said moving forward this is an opportunity for emergency centers to look at their response to the outage and see what worked and what didn’t.
“We’re talking multiple 911 centers that are going to have to get together and figure out what’s the best way to handle this if we ever get a failure like this again,” he said.
The time of the incident may have worked in their favor, but Hicks said he remains concerned because it may never be known what 911 calls did not get through during the outage.
In case of continuing issues, there are alternate numbers to call in some areas:
Algona Police 253-852-2121
Auburn Police 253-852-2121
Bellingham Police / Fire 360-676-6911
Black Diamond Police 253-852-2121
Clark County 360-696-4461
Clallam County 360-417-4970
Cowlitz County 360-577-3098
Des Moines Police 253-852-2121
Federal Way Police 253-852-2121
Fife 253-922-6656
Grays Harbor County 360-533-7880
Island County 360-679-9567
JBLM 253-967-3107
Kent Police 253-852-2121
King County Fire Departments (south): 253-852-2121
Lewis County 360-740-1105
Mason County 360-427-7761
City of Pacific Police 253-852-2121
Pacific County (north) 360-875-9397
Pacific County (south) 360-642-9397
Pierce County 253-798-4722
Pierce County WSP 253-538-3240
Pierce County Fire 253-581-3888
Puyallup 253-841-5431
Redmond Fire/medical 425-577-5656
Redmond Police 425-556-2500.
Renton Police 253-852-2121
San Juan County 360-378-4141
Shelton 360-426-4441
Skagit County 360-336-3131 or 360-428-3211
Tacoma 253-627-0151
Thurston County 360-704-2740
Thurston County WSP 253-538-3240
Tukwila Police 253-852-2121
University of Washington Police 206-685-8973
Whatcom County 360-676-6911
There is also alist of the ten-digit emergency and non-emergency numbers through the Washington State Patrol.
