A software issue may have been the cause of an unscheduled phone outage which led to 911 call centers being down in the southern part of Kansas for much of the afternoon Sunday.
The outage affected numerous call centers including the Lyon County Emergency Communications Center and Greenwood County. LCECC Director Roxanne Van Gundy says the exact cause has yet to be determined, however, likely indications are that the outage developed due to a system issue through AT&T.
While the system was down calls had to be redirected through Franklin County thanks to a pre-existing partnership. Van Gundy says that partnership was made possible when the center became part of the Electronic Systems Information Network (ESI Net) roughly two years ago.
The issue was resolved shortly before 5 pm Sunday afternoon.
According to Van Gundy, while the issue has been resolved, for now, there is the potential it could develop again. With that in mind, she tells KVOE News AT&T will continue to monitor the system to ensure this situation does not develop again.
2:30 pm Sunday: Emergency dispatch in Lyon, Greenwood counties asking residents to be patient with southern half of Kansas experiencing 911 outages
The Lyon County Emergency Communication Center is asking residents to be patient as it and a lot of emergency dispatch centers in Kansas are going through an unscheduled phone outage.
Director Roxanne VanGundy says there is a system issue through AT&T that has taken incoming calls offline across the southern half of the state. Emergency work is underway to restore phone service, but at this time there is no estimate for when service will be restored.
Lyon County’s 911 calls are now rolling to Franklin County thanks to an ongoing partnership. Franklin County will radio details back to Lyon County dispatchers, but VanGundy says callers need to remain on the line when they call.
Complicating matters is the non-emergency number, 343-4200, only has one line available as of 2 pm Sunday so that line may be tied up at times until the overall situation is resolved.
Greenwood County residents need to call 620-583-5592 until the outage is restored.
Stay with KVOE, KVOE.com and KVOE social media for updates.
