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911 system restored across CT following outages

FILE: Hartford police vehicle on September 15, 2023.
Tyler Russell
/
Connecticut Public
FILE: Hartford police vehicle on September 15, 2023.

State officials say 911 service was restored across Connecticut Tuesday afternoon after various cities and emergency departments reported issues for several hours.

The outages appear to have been technical and are not due to a malicious attack, Connecticut State Police said.

"Networks across the state are reporting full operational capacity at this time," state police said in a statement.

Earlier in the day, state emergency officials were encouraging that people not call 911 unless they had an emergency. People who couldn't reach 911 were encouraged to text to 911.

“9-1-1 providers are being inundated with nonemergency calls/texts,” the state emergency management department said on social media. “Please do not test call/text capabilities unless there is an emergency.”

Some cities and agencies with 911 outages were encouraging residents to instead call specified numbers posted in messages on their social media channels.

Hartford and New Haven were among the cities affected.

In New Haven, 911 was back up and running around 3 p.m., officials said. City officials had been encouraging residents to call a Yale emergency line for life-threatening emergencies and that calls would be routed accordingly.

“Thank you to our first responders and state partners for their work to help resolve this statewide issue, and thank you to residents for your patience and cooperation," New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said in a statement.

Some Connecticut cities and emergency agencies did not report issues with their phone lines. Those include Bridgeport, Avon, Brookfield and others.