911 System Restored in Massachusetts

The 911 system across Massachusetts was restored Tuesday after going down for several hours, which made it impossible for anyone to reach emergency services through the call number. The Massachusetts State Police announced around 3:45pm that the system had been restored and that people could resume calling emergency services, the AP reports. They didn't provide any details behind the cause of the outage.

• After the system went down, Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox advised the public to contact local police departments if they need help. "In addition, if you're having any issues that are medical related, or EMS or fire-related, you can go and pull your local call box, that's the red light boxes that fire departments have on local street corners, to also get medical attention that way," he said.
• State officials triggered an emergency alert to cellphones about the outage at around 2:30pm, WCVB reports.
• Outages were reported by police in cities including Boston, Worcester, Medford, and Malden, reports NBC Boston.

• Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said residents shouldn't worry about calling the correct number or facility for their emergency, but to just reach out to their nearest authorities. "If you are experiencing an emergency, if you find your way to police, fire, or EMS, we will make sure that you get to the right place," she said. She said authorities were working to resolve the issue.
• Cox said the disruption "could be very temporary." "But we thought it was important, particularly with the heat that we're about to experience, to make sure that we give people the opportunity to know what's going on," he said.

This story has been updated with new developments.

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