Massachusetts experienced a significant incident with its 911 system last week, leading to a temporary disconnection of emergency services in the area. On Tuesday, between 13:15 and 15:15 local time, the 911 system was completely unavailable, rendering it impossible to contact emergency services through the usual number.
According to the Massachusetts Department of 911, the disruption was triggered by a security measure known as an inter-grid screen designed to prevent cyber attacks. However, it appears that there was a misconfiguration issue, though the exact cause is still under investigation.
Despite the system failure, dispatch centers were able to identify incoming calls and return them, ensuring that there were no adverse effects on emergency responses during the outage.
Frank Poznyak, the executive director of the Massachusetts 911 department, emphasized the commitment to providing reliable and modern 911 services to all residents and visitors of the state. Measures will be taken to prevent such incidents in the future.
During the outage, Boston police commissioner Michael Cox emphasized the importance of knowing alternative ways to seek help. He advised individuals with urgent needs to contact local police departments and utilize local emergency call boxes for assistance.
Medical centers confirmed that their operations were not impacted by the system failure. Tufts Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital reported that their internal emergency communication systems remained operational. The Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association also stated that they had no reports of incidents related to the issue.
Though the 911 system failure caused confusion in neighboring northeastern states, such as Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, and Vermont, whose residents received notifications in error, officials confirmed their systems operated without interruptions. Barbara Neil, Executive Director of the Vermont Enhanced 911 Board, mentioned that Vermont residents possibly received alerts due to proximity to Massachusetts or voluntary subscriptions to the Massachusetts warning system.