911 calls did not connect in 4 southern Idaho counties Tuesday, Twin Falls police say

TWIN FALLS, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — Calls to 911 did not go through at around 4 p.m. Tuesday in parts of southern Idaho because of an outage with Lumen Technologies, Twin Falls Police Department Lt. Steven Gassert said.

The outage knocked 911 offline for SIRCOMM, also known as Southern Idaho Regional Communications. SIRCOMM covers Gooding, Jerome, Lincoln and Twin Falls counties.

Gassert said people tried to call 911 and could not get through.

“We had some people that had attempted to call 911, were unable to get through,” Gassert said. He said dispatchers then tried calling 911 themselves and “recognize(d) that the system was not working properly.”

The Twin Falls Police Department temporarily forwarded 911 calls to the 311 line on Tuesday, according to Gassert.

Gassert said people who contacted police still received emergency services.

“Everyone that contacted the police, their situation was still handled. They still had emergency services that were provided to them,” Gassert said.

Gassert said city dispatch centers, SIRCOMM and other dispatch centers usually have non-emergency lines people can try.

“Here in the city of Twin Falls, we have 311 set up as our non-emergency line that was still acting accordingly,” Gassert said.

Gassert also said the department’s social media is a place to find information and to reach out if needed.

“While we don’t encourage it, another way that you can contact our department in a non-emergency situation is via our social media. You can message us on Facebook Messenger, and that’s another way to contact us if you’re not getting through on our non-emergency line,” Gassert said.

Service restored, cause under review

The issue was resolved Tuesday evening. Gassert said the department was notified about 7:15 p.m. that 911 service was back up and had been tested.

As of Wednesday, Lumen was still working to determine the cause, Gassert said.