911 system restored in Charleston area after AT&T outage causes ‘major system failure’
Service has been restored to 911 service in Charleston and Berkeley counties after eight hours, a problem described by a Berkeley County spokesperson as “a major system failure.”
An AT&T outage, caused by a cut fiber wire, knocked out 911 service and disrupted emergency phone services from Thursday morning till early evening.
The malfunction left officials in Berkeley, Charleston, Colleton and Dorchester counties frantically trying to set up alternative ways to help residents who were unable to get help when they tried to call 911.
Shortly before 6 p.m., Charleston County announced AT&T had restored service to its Consolidated Dispatch Center.
At 6:40 p.m., Dorchester County confirmed service was back at its dispatch center. But AT&T said it could be several hours before full service is restored, “and service could be sporadic until there,” officials said.
As a safeguard, Dorchester County said it would keep its temporary phone line, 843-970-2782, up as a backup until at least Friday.
Five minutes later, at 6:45 p.m., Berkeley County confirmed it too had its service back.
Earlier in the day, Berkeley County spokeswoman Hannah Moldenhauer described the multi-agency, multi-county 911 outage created by AT&T as “a major system failure.”
More than six hours after the outage occurred, a spokesman with AT&T told The State newspaper its teams were “working as quickly as possible to repair a fiber cut caused by a third-party that is affecting services in the Charleston, SC, area.”
“We apologize for the inconvenience,” the statement from AT&T said.
The lines stopped working about 10 a.m., according to Charleston County spokeswoman Kelsey Barlow, who said in a phone interview that “it happened very suddenly.”
Hours later, around 12:38 p.m., officials sent an emergency alert across the Lowcountry that caused cellphones to vibrate and wail with the signature two-tone emergency sound. The message instructed residents to dial specific temporary numbers in case they are facing life-threatening emergency.
However, the emergency alert also contained a typo.
It listed the wrong area code for Charleston County’s temporary emergency line. The error forced officials to send a second emergency alert less than 20 minutes later with the correct list of emergency numbers.
Charleston County residents were asked to call 854-216-0239, with officials urging residents to “stay on the line and not hang up.” Residents can also text 9-1-1 and use 911helpme.com to report emergencies.
Effects on municipalities
The outage, which also impacted Charleston County’s government offices, would also impact other municipalities.
At 11:45 a.m., Berkeley County’s official Twitter account said its emergency dispatchers were “overwhelmed with calls.”
Berkeley County officials said their 911 center has a back-up system, which meant it was getting 911 calls from other jurisdictions as Charleston, Dorchester and Colleton counties began announcing in near rolling succession that they, too, had lost their 911 systems.
Just before 12:45 p.m., Dorchester County officials said the widespread outage had taken out their phone system and, with it, their county’s 911 dispatch center.
Berkeley County began asking its callers to dial 843-761-9000 in case of life-threatening emergencies instead of 911.
Dorchester County residents should call 843-970-2782, county officials said.
Colleton residents were instructed to dial 843-549-1911 in case they faced a life-threatening emergency.
As the 5 p.m. hour approached and the roadways began to clog with commuters, the 911 systems remained down across the four Lowcountry counties.
Curiosity, though, began to spike.
After residents began calling the emergency number just to see if it worked, Charleston County put out a warning on its official social media pages.
“This number is for emergencies only,” Charleston County wrote in posts on Facebook and Twitter. “Our phone lines, including 9-1-1 are still down at this hour.”
This story was originally published May 20, 2021 at 2:04 PM.
