A number of 911 calls in Vermont were blocked on Friday from 3 to 8:45 p.m.
A FairPoint Communications equipment failure and damaged fiber line caused a system outage for many Vermonters who were not able to place outbound calls.
The Vermont State Police dispatch in Williston, St. Albans and Middlesex, the Montpelier Police Department and Vermont Gas all reported 911 service outages.
During the 5.75 hour partial outage, 45 people attempted calls to 911, according to data from FairPoint.
The Enhanced 911 Board followed up with those callers on Saturday. It is not clear whether any individuals in emergencies were affected by the blocked calls.
David Tucker, executive director for the Enhanced 911 Board, said, “too much time transpired between when we learned of the outage and when we got any call back numbers from FairPoint.”
“It’s bad enough when there is any kind of outage to this critical safety system, but it is very concerning that our ability to respond to those callers who didn’t get through during the outage was delayed,” Tucker said in a statement.
The current E911 service provider is Intrado Inc., based in Colorado. In August, there was a 40-minute 911 outage caused by an equipment failure at Intrado.
The outage on Saturday was caused by a FairPoint equipment failure.
Angelynne Amores, spokesperson for FairPoint Communications, said, “this outage was caused by a rare occurrence of the winter storm and a hardware failure, which impacted callers in the State of Vermont unable to place calls, including calls to 911. Temporary re-routes were made last night, allowing for interim service; followed by permanent re-routes allowing for full restoration last night. The network in Vermont is working well now and has been since last night as of 8:45 PM.”
The company says the network problem was not connected to a long-running strike. Workers have been off the job for 41 days.
The state has agreed to a five-year contract with FairPoint for E911 service starting next summer.
The company will be paid $1.8 million for the set-up of the new system; the state will pay the company roughly $9.5 million for 60 months of operations and maintenance.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 6:23 a.m. Dec. 1.
