The 911 system is down in Washington DC
The first phone to receive a 911 call (via 911dispatch.com) Very batphone-looking!
The DC Emergency Services system suffered a power outage and the 911 system went down on Saturday afternoon. The District of Columbia “Alert DC” system began sending out alerts at 2:17pm with information on various phone numbers to call for emergency service.
911 system is back up and running.Please discontinue use of any phone number other than 911, or 2/965-9100 for service.//5020
— DC Police Department (@DCPoliceDept) March 3, 2012
The DC Police Department reports that the 911 system is back up as of 3:47pm.
Here’s a New York Times article from 1999 when the NYC 911 system was unavailable for an hour. The NYC system has since been upgraded at a cost of around $2.4 billion.