By GREGG MONTGOMERY
WISH-TV | wishtv.com
The Indiana state treasurer said Wednesday that the cause of Tuesday’s 911 “outage” in several Indiana counties remained a mystery.
After 911 service was restored Tuesday night, the Indiana Statewide 911 Board posted on social media that “some Indiana counties experienced some 911 issues” but gave no details. The board’s post indicated that the backup and text-to-911 systems “worked as intended” during the outage.
Indiana State Treasurer Daniel Elliott oversees the Indiana Statewide 911 Board. He was elected to the job in November 2022 and took office this year. The former Morgan County Council and Morgan County Redevelopment Commission leader has a 25-year background in software design and creation for information technology and cybersecurity, according to his biography.
In a Wednesday news release, Elliott said, “Since last night, I’ve been working with my team and other partners to understand why our 911 systems suffered a temporary outage. We are still working to determine the cause of the problem and we will share information more when it is appropriate. Last night’s outage demonstrates the resiliency of our 911 systems. I have asked my team to find out what happened so that we can prevent future outages of that nature from occurring again. I remain fully confident in our statewide 911 systems.”
The first reports of the outage were shared on social media about 5:45 p.m. Tuesday.
The treasurer says “normal service” of 911 systems was restored by 8 p.m. Tuesday.
Counties affected included Hancock, Hamilton, Johnson, Lawrence, Madison and Shelby, News 8 confirmed with local first responders.
Michael R. Hubbs, executive director of Hamilton County Public Safety Communications based in Noblesville, said in an advisory issued to the media during the outage that the 911 center remained operational and was receiving emergency 911 calls although it’s been “impacted by an unknown disruption involving the 911 system through the Indianapolis Metropolitan Area that involves numerous counties.”
Some social media posts Tuesday from local public safety agencies had indicated the 911 outage involved AT&T systems.
The outage did not appear to affect Indianapolis, the police and Marion County Emergency Management Agency said.