How about that 911 outage on Thursday and Friday?
I didn’t become aware of the 911 outage until late Thursday evening, when I began seeing posts from Lewis County 911 Communications and Lewis County Fire District 6.
“There is currently a statewide 911 outage where callers are getting a fast-busy signal when calling 911. This is occurring with calls made on landlines AND cell phones,” said Fire District 6 just after 9 p.m. “CenturyLink has no ETA for this problem to be resolved.”
Despite positive progress overnight Thursday, 911 outages persisted across Washington state well into Friday mid-morning (as of the writing of this column).
Of course, what we’d later find out is that the outage was actually a nationwide issue, affecting homes and businesses across the Pacific Northwest and the country. But, of course, most concerning — as far as public safety goes — was the loss of 911 relays across multiple counties and states.
It struck me as odd that a single outage could knock out all 911 relays for entire states. So, I started doing a little research.
As it turns out, this isn’t the first time this has happened CenturyLink … and they’ve been punished by state and federal authorities for 911 outages before, as well as criticized for their communications to the public and public safety officials after-the-fact.
Back in 2014, CenturyLink (along with a third-party vendor) were blamed for a multi-state 911 outage. According to The News Tribune: “A third-party vendor’s software coding error caused the roughly six-hour outage, which kept the vast majority of Washington residents from being able to call 911 late April 9 and early April 10.”
During that six-hour outage alone in 2014, thousands of calls to 911 went unanswered. At least one news article details a situation where a woman, home alone with her 5-year-old twins, attempted to call 911 more than 37 times when an intruder entered her home. She eventually scared the intruder off with a large kitchen knife.
While that situation is unique, the equally pressing and more common concern is how a 911 outage those who needed emergency medical services. While social media and emergency alerts to cell phones do a great job (even at 11:35 p.m. when you’re deep sleeping), we know that those messages don’t always reach everyone, despite our best efforts.
911 is hugely important public safety tool that must be ensured as stable.
Following an investigation of the 2014 CenturyLink 911 outage, the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission found that CenturyLink did not automatically reroute calls when the system failed, did not manage 911 services as required by law, and did not quickly tell 911 call centers about the outage.
According to the Chinook Observer, “The outage came to light only after 911 operators were concerned by an unusually low number of incoming calls. It took hours to for the company to realize the problem stretched across Washington and several other states.”
According to SeattlePI.com, “the Public Counsel Unit of the Washington State Attorney General’s Office that CenturyLink be fined $11.5 million for a six-hour 911 outage.” Though the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission would end up accepting a punitive settlement amount by way of a $2.85 million penalty in 2016.
Back when the final settlement was announced in 2016, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson voiced his displeasure with the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission, stating: “I’m deeply disappointed the UTC has accepted this inadequate settlement.”
“CenturyLink’s error denied 911 service to millions of Washingtonians … I strongly disagree with the UTC that this resolution is in the public interest … If this failure does not warrant a maximum penalty, I find it hard to imagine what circumstances would.”
Well … how about a 911 outage spanning easily double or triple the 2014 outage duration, Bob?
Ferguson described the 2014 settlement as a “slap on the wrist” for CenturyLink, so I can’t wait to hear how he feels about this one.
The Federal Communications Commission also fined CenturyLink for the 2014 outage in the amount of $16 million (and the third-party vendor for $1.4 million).
According to the punitive settlement documents: “The 911 outage did not stem from an extraordinary natural disaster or other unforeseeable catastrophe; rather, it was a ‘sunny day’ failure that resulted in over 6,600 missed 911 calls, including calls reportedly involving domestic violence, assault, motor vehicle accidents, a heart attack, an overdose, and an intruder breaking into a residence.”
The News Tribune states that CenturyLink “had said previously that safeguards were taken after the (2014) outage to keep it from happening again.” Settlement documents seem to indicate that was a requirement — to have a backup system in place — in the event of a future outage (of which the likelihood increases as more and more software takes over our communications functions and infrastructure).
CenturyLink’s settlement was then the largest 911-related fine ever assessed by the FCC … so I can only imagine, pending an investigation, what the penalties might look like this time.
As of Friday morning, both Ajit Pai, chairman of the FCC, and Jessica Rosenworcel, commissioner of the FCC had announced pending investigative action against CenturyLink.
Ajit Pai said in a statement released on Twitter: “The CenturyLink service outage is therefore completely unacceptable, and its breadth and duration are particularly troubling.”
Public safety infrastructure isn’t a sexy topic, but it will be interesting to follow the news on this one.
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Brittany Voie is a columnist for The Chronicle. She lives south of Chehalis with her husband and two young sons. She welcomes correspondence from the community at voiedevelopment@comcast.net.
