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Verizon: Baltimore's 911 outage caused by 'mistaken reroute' in network

Posted at 7:56 AM, Jun 16, 2016
and last updated 2016-06-16 20:45:18-04

Verizon officials said the 911 system failure that shut down emergency calls for more than two hours Tuesday night was caused by a “mistaken reroute” in the company’s network.

Verizon issued a statement Thursday saying an investigation determined emergency calls were being rerouted to an unmanned back-up public-safety answering point in another location.

The company said it was alerted at 7:48 p.m. that calls weren’t being completed, and corrected the rerouting issue just before 9:30 p.m. Callers were told to dial 311 instead during the glitch.

“Both Verizon and the City of Baltimore continue to work together to ensure disaster recovery plans are in place to prevent future issues,” the company said in a news release.

City leaders met Wednesday to discuss the outage, saying officials worked quickly to correct the problem.

RELATED: Baltimore leaders still trying to figure out why 911 crashed Tuesday night

The Fire and Police Departments took control of the city’s 911 system in October, yet officials said that change isn’t related to Tuesday night's crash.

Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said no fatal or non-fatal shootings took place during the failure.

Editor's Note: File video of Baltimore County 911 Center

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