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Nationwide 911 outage creates panic as it appears to target 'significant number of swing states' ahead of polls

Law enforcement agencies from Nevada to Pennsylvania and Arizona to Minnesota tweeted that their 911 systems were down starting somewhere around 7 pm ET on Monday

Police departments in multiple cities across the nation reported a brief outage of their 911 systems on Monday night, September 28. Around the same time, there was a major Microsoft system outage although it was not clear if both the outages were in any way related. 

Law enforcement agencies from Nevada to Pennsylvania and Arizona to Minnesota tweeted that their 911 systems were down starting somewhere around 7 pm ET. The New York Police Department said that its own systems were up and running, although it was aware of the outages, and the possible link to the Microsoft situation. Many of the law enforcement agencies posted updates on the ongoing situation on their respective Twitter pages, letting their residents know when the systems were back online. 

"ECN can confirm there is a multi-state 911 outage affecting Minnesota at this time. To call 911, please use the 10-digit 24-hour number associated with your county's 911 center," Minnesota Department of Public Safety Emergency Communication Networks wrote. At 8:45 pm they confirmed, "911 service in MN (including Text-to-911) is restored following a multi-state outage. CenturyLink will determine the disruption's timeline & how many calls were impacted in MN. We will provide that information when we receive it from CenturyLink." 

Tucson police department tweeted, "911 services are down in the City of Tucson. If you need to make an emergency call, dial 520-372-8011. We will let you know when 911 is back online." This was followed by the update, "911 services are fully operational again. Please disregard our initial tweet. If you are in need of emergency services, call 911."

The Pima County Sheriff's Department simply tweeted, "911 Outage." Their website later reported, "911 services have been restored in Pima County. People may dial 911 in case of emergency. Text to 911 is also available if a person is unable to call."

Robert J DeNault, Duke Law student and Founder of Trump Administration Accountability Project, noted on social media that the outage mostly affected swing states for some reason. "A nationwide outage of 911 phone systems is alarming US officials. Unclear what happened, but it appears to have targeted a significant number of swing states in the upcoming November election," he wrote on Twitter, providing a list of all the states that were affected by the outage. 

People on social media were mostly shocked by the news of a nationwide outage of emergency services. Jason Buttrill, a former Intelligence Analyst for DoD, wrote, "A cyber attack on Universal Health Services, a Microsoft 365 outage and a 911 outage... uhhhhhhh." A second user remarked, "Nationwide 911 outage? That this is even possible in a nation of 50 sovereign states, with thousands of counties and cities, should be a clue that things have gone terribly wrong. We’re just a conglomerate of different place names and offices all run by the same contractors." 

Daily Caller writer Kyle Hooten wrote, "I wonder if the nationwide 911 outage was caused by a malicious actor." Scientist Matt Blaze wrote, "I’m very curious (and obviously concerned) about an apparently very large scale 911 outage being reported across parts of the US. I wonder if it affects cellular and landlines, just cellular, or what. (Can imagine various different failure modes here)" Another user hilariously quipped, "'911 what is your emergency?' 'Oh nothing, I was just checking to see if I was affected by the nationwide 911 outage.'"