The abrupt failure of Massachusetts’ 911 system on Tuesday was a stark example of the disastrous consequences that can occur when an emergency network that is supposed to be reliable is, without warning, suddenly unreliable. Two Hour Long Outage The outage, lasting two hours, prompted a scramble among emergency agencies as they directed the public to reach out directly to the local authorities at less-familiar phone numbers or, as a last resort, go in person to their local firehouse. The Massachusetts state 911 Department said on Wednesday that while operators did not receive calls during the outage, they were able to see the numbers of people who had tried to reach 911 and were able to call them back.
The failure was caused by a firewall that was supposed to help prevent cyberattacks but instead blocked calls from getting through, the department said. The state is reviewing why the firewall activated; it said the interruption was not caused by any cyberattack. Last year, more than 3.
2 million contacts were made to emergency call centers in Massachusetts. Calls to 911 fluctuate significantly through the day, but that comes out to an average of 367 calls an hour, an indication of just how impactful the outage on Tuesday may have been. Related Story: Not the First 911 Outage It was far from the first 911 outage to strike a large region.
Several major failures in recent years have sent officials scrambling. In June 2020, an equipment problem led to a vast T-Mobile outage acros.