Last night, several U.S. communities suffered a temporary but alarming 911 service outage impacting areas across Nebraska, Texas, Nevada, and all of South Dakota. The breakdown in the emergency response system began around 10 p.m. local time but was resolved by midnight, as service was systematically restored. This critical service interruption raised widespread concerns as residents were left without direct access to emergency services.

The outage appeared to originate from an unnamed major cellular carrier, as reported by the Del Rio Police Department in Texas. The department clarified that the issue is with the carrier and not with the City of Del Rio systems, according to a statement posted on Facebook. In a bid to maintain public safety, residents were advised to use landlines or seek alternative methods to contact emergency services during the disruption.

In the face of the outage, various jurisdictions adopted contingency measures. Las Vegas officials reported that while calls to 911 from landlines were experiencing issues, dispatchers were still receiving notifications of incoming calls. Remarkably, dispatchers actively attempted to call back the numbers that dialed 911, ensuring that no call for help went unanswered. Furthermore, in Henderson County, Nevada, texts to 911 continued to go through, offering an alternative communication channel for those seeking urgent assistance.

The issue was not confined to a single jurisdiction, as Spearfish, Nevada, and Aberdeen, South Dakota, also reported similar disruptions. Officials in Las Vegas—a city with a population exceeding 650,000—were quick to alert residents about the outage before announcing around 9 p.m. that the service had been reinstated and was operational again. During the hours of uncertainty, officials reassured the public that all attempted calls made during the outage had been responded to, as they told CBS News.

An investigation into what caused the outage is currently underway. The sudden loss of a service as critical as 911 highlights the vulnerabilities in our emergency communication infrastructure, and it underscored the importance of having robust backup systems.