The City of Westfield police headquarters located on Washington St. (WNG file photo)
WESTFIELD- 911 callers throughout the country experienced technical difficulties and outages throughout the day Friday from both cell phones and landlines.
According to the Massachusetts government website, many 911 callers did not make it through to a dispatcher. Instead, some heard a fast busy-signal, a recording saying, ‘all circuits are busy’ and some were connected to an emergency call center they did not intend to connect to.
“Nobody understands exactly what has happened,” said Nina Barszcz, Director of the 911 center in Westfield, “this is nationwide, it is not exclusive to Westfield or Massachusetts.”
The Westfield 911 center was notified early Friday morning that outages of the system were reported across the country. It was not until approximately two hours later that Westfield began experiencing the same thing.
As of 4 p.m. Friday, the situation appeared to have resolved itself in Westfield.
“I do not know how reliable it is and if we are even receiving every call,” said Barszcz, “nobody has called and said 911 is not working for a little while.”
Westfield and State officials said that if one calls 911 and does not get through that they should call their community’s 10-digit local police emergency number. The number for each city and town is available online. Westfield’s local police number is 413-562-5411.
Barszcz said that people should still try to call 911 first before attempting to dial the local number. Two emergency alerts were sent to cell phones informing citizens of the situation during the day on Friday. As of Friday afternoon, no cause had been announced for the outages.
If one cannot get through to the 911 dispatcher or cannot find their local police number, they may call the Massachusetts State 911 department at 508-872-2508 and give their exact location. Massachusetts now has text-to-911 services available as well.
