Champaign Co. METCAD provides update on 911 outage

CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, Ill. (WCIA) — Champaign County’s METCAD agency is sharing new details about an outage that affected their ability to receive emergency and non-emergency calls Thursday evening. The outage, they said, was even more widespread than just Champaign County.

METCAD officials said they received at 8 p.m. an automated notification from AT&T, telling them both 911 circuits serving the METCAD center were not working. Staff verified that both 911 and nonemergency lines weren’t working and immediately initiated their outage plan.

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That plan includes transferring 911 lines to Vermilion County, but their 911 center was also affected. In fact, the outage affected 911 centers across Central Illinois and Metro East — Belleville, Centralia, Fulton County, Peoria and Salem were all affected.

Macon County’s 911 facilities were not affected, however, and METCAD was able to transfer their 911 lines over to them at 8:40 p.m. Staff in Macon County relayed details of Champaign County’s 911 calls back to METCAD for local dispatching.

AT&T was able to resolve the issue within 90 minutes and at 9:25, Champaign County’s 911 calls were rerouted back to METCAD.

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AT&T is still investigating the cause of the outage, but METCAD officials said the company indicated it was something in their infrastructure that failed. The Statewide 911 Administrator and the Federal Communications Commission are also looking into the outage.

METCAD extended its appreciation to Macon County 911 for their help and to the public for its understanding and patience.

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