RALEIGH, N.C.-
Emergency 911 service in about 30 eastern North Carolina counties faced sporadic outages for much of Monday night, and the service provider was trying to determine what knocked out the service.
There were no immediate reports of residents failing to get medical or police help. The service provider, Embarq, said residents were able to make some local phone calls to reach emergency personnel through alternate numbers.
After the outage, emergency officials scrambled to provide the public with alternate phone numbers. Embarq said the service was restored in most areas by 9 p.m.
The source of the outage was likely problems with the company’s programming or equipment, said Tom Matthews, a regional spokesman for service provider Embarq.
“It’s a situation that we don’t want to happen, and it’s in a larger area than we ever want to see it happen,” he said.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
