MUSCATINE, Iowa – The Muscatine County Emergency Management Agency was informed today (May 30) of a landline outage affecting most of central and eastern Iowa.
Due to an issue with a service provider, many Muscatine County residents, services, businesses, and emergency services providers are experiencing phone and/or internet issues. 9-1-1 calls from wireless phones are being received at this time. However, landline phones have been impacted and may not be able to complete calls, including to 9-1-1. Due to the nature of the malfunction, services impacted vary between locations.
The Muscatine Emergency Management Agency recommends the following actions at this time:
- If you have an emergency, dial 9-1-1 from a mobile phone.
- If you have an automated alarm system, dial 9-1-1 from a mobile phone to report the alarm.
- Follow local media and official social media pages for updates on impacted or restored services. The outages may vary by location.
There are a few things that people should be aware of in the event of an outage of 911 communications:
- Never call 911 unless you’re in a true emergency.
- Tune in to local media, and social media from official sources for additional information and guidance.
- Depending on the nature of the outage there may be alternative ways to reach 911.
When 911 outages occur in our state, responsible parties will conduct a thorough investigation to understand what happened and why it happened so those involved can review if changes are needed to reduce future outages.
You can follow Muscatine County Emergency Management on Facebook or the Iowa Department of Homeland Security Facebook for more information.