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A 911 outage in Dutchess County on Tuesday (July 15) left residents without emergency phone service for nearly six hours. The outage, which began shortly after 2 p.m. and ended just before 9 p.m., was reportedly caused by damage to fiber optic cables. A cement mixer truck is suspected of striking the cables, ripping approximately 300 feet of lines from utility poles along East Dorsey Lane, near the county's 911 call center.
Verizon crews worked diligently to repair the damage, re-hanging the cables and splicing 24 damaged lines to restore service. During the outage, emergency calls were rerouted to call centers several miles away, and residents were advised to use seven-digit phone numbers for emergencies. Texts to 911 remained operational throughout the incident.
The county's 911 system is designed with redundancy capabilities to reroute calls around damaged lines, but the system did not function as expected. Dutchess County is investigating the redundancy system's failure to ensure future reliability.
Verizon crews from Poughkeepsie and Kingston were involved in the restoration efforts, as reported by The Highlands Current. The county has advised residents to stay updated through the Dutchess County Emergency Management Facebook page and the Ready Dutchess! mobile app for future emergencies.