The 911 emergency system was down statewide for two hours in Massachusetts on Tuesday afternoon.
State officials notified the public that the issue had been resolved and that the 911 system had been restored at 3:49 p.m. — nearly two hours after the outage began.
The Massachusetts State 911 department said Wednesday the outage was called by a firewall, a safety feature that provides protection against cyberattacks and hacking.
The statewide outage started at 1:15 p.m. Tuesday, causing the department to address the issue with its 911 vendor Comtech.
A preliminary investigation determined that the outage was the result of a firewall that “prevented calls from getting to the 911 dispatch centers.” However, it's not clear why the firewall blocked calls and the cause remains under review.
A Comtech initial review of the incident “confirmed that the interruption was not the result of a cyberattack or hack” the department said. Comtech advised State 911 “that they have applied a technical solution to ensure that this does not happen again.”
The department said that the interruption lasted two hours and service was fully restored by 3:15 p.m. The department has not received any reports of emergencies impacted during the interruption. Although some calls may not have gone through in that two-hour outage, dispatch centers were able to identify phone numbers and return calls.
The Boston Police Department had warned the public Tuesday afternoon: “If you are experiencing an emergency please pull a Fire Box.”
Locals in Boston in need of help were advised to reach out to local district stations through their local phone numbers, pull fire boxes, or approach an officer as police were patrolling the city with blue lights activated “for high visibility” amid the shutdown.
Police in Worcester, Malden and Medford also warned residents that the 911 system is down and urged them to instead contact authorities using administrative numbers.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu acknowledged the issue during a news conference on the Boston Celtics NBA Championship win.
“Calls are not going through. We’ve been in touch with the state and with all the relevant officials to work on getting this resolved,” Wu said. “There are multiple places on the police website you can find the phone numbers for all of the district stations, and those will be available also on social media.”
Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox said, it was unclear how long the outage would last.
“This could be very temporary," he said. "We’re waiting to hear a little later about how long it would last, but we thought it was important particularly with the heat that we’re about to experience, to make sure that we give people the opportunity to know what’s going on in regards to the 911 system.”
Some Connecticut, New York and Maine residents erroneously received the same wireless emergency alert notifying them of a 911 outage. Officials from all three states clarified the alert was exclusively meant for Massachusetts residents.
A second public service alert in New York clarified minutes after the initial erroneous operation that 911 is not down, and Connecticut officials on X clarified that Connecticut is not experiencing a 911 outage either.
In April, law enforcement agencies across four states experienced 911 outages that left millions unable to quickly contact authorities. The outages appeared to be related to a wire that was cut while installing a light pole, and services were restored in a matter of hours.
