Southern states hit by 911 outage after ‘major fiber cut’ in Mississippi

Southern states were weathering extensive 911 outages today after reported damage to fiber optic lines.

“The cutting of a 9-1-1 fiber line is having a regional impact on 9-1-1 services,” the Emergency Communications Center for the city of New Orleans posted on X. “For 9-1-1 emergencies in New Orleans, callers can instead temporarily dial 504-513-6594 *FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY.*”

Orleans Parish Communication District Executive Director Karl Fasold told reporters this afternoon that the “major fiber cut” occurred in Mississippi and “there’s no indication it was malicious.” The outage was expected to last for a few hours, he said, while also indicating that some 911 calls have been going through.

The New Orleans Police Department posted at 5:16 p.m. EST that 911 services had been restored.

CNN reported that the outages impacted multiple parishes in Louisiana and several Mississippi counties.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said in an X post that the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency “received reports from AT&T that the company is currently responding to a series of fiber cuts, which are impacting their network in the three states” of Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. “The state of Mississippi is in close contact with AT&T. AT&T crews are working to assess the damage and restore service as quickly as possible. If you need to report an emergency and are unable to contact 911, please contact your local law enforcement agency directly.”

Potential impacts outside of Louisiana and Mississippi were unknown due to a lack of official reports, yet Fulton County in Illinois also reported a 911 outage this afternoon. “The public is currently able to dial 911; however, those calls will be rerouted to non-emergency lines while repairs are being made to 911 lines,” the Canton Police Department posted on Facebook. “As a result, please be mindful of potential call wait times. No time frame for the completion of repairs is currently available. However, we will post an update when full service has been restored.”

“911 is currently down throughout the entire county,” the department added. “Please call the non-emergency number for your jurisdiction to reach the appropriate contact. For Canton jurisdiction, please call 647-5131. Please be mindful of potential call wait times.”

The Down Detector site, which maps user-reported issues with 911, indicated potential problems in hot spots stretching from Texas to Georgia.