Service restored following statewide outage for 911 centers

Service was restored Thursday afternoon to more than a dozen counties across the state that experienced an outage with their 911 centers.
Greene County was among them, with the outage occurring about 3 p.m. Wednesday. A fiber optic line was cut in Maryland, according to Richard Policz, operations and training officer for Greene County’s Emergency Management.
The problem affected 13 counties that use Lumen Technologies, a telecommunications company headquartered in Louisiana, according to the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. Those counties include Adams, Beaver, Bedford, Butler, Clarion, Cumberland, Franklin, Fulton, Greene, Juniata, Mifflin, Perry and Somerset.
By 1 p.m. Thursday, the line had been repaired and service restored, according to Ruth Miller, director of communications for PEMA.
During the outage, Policz said some people who tried calling 911 were told the number had changed. By Thursday morning, Greene County 911 officials were able to operate as normal after working with area service providers to reroute calls, according to the county’s post on Facebook.
“Slowly things are still getting back to normal,” Donald Mason, Greene County’s director of emergency services, said Thursday morning.
During the outage, the counties sent out Emergency Alert System messages via news outlets and mobile notifications. Residents in Greene County were also able to reach the 911 center by dialing 724-627-4911 or 724-852-2911.