Officials have reported significant outages affecting the 911 emergency calling systems in Louisiana and Mississippi, primarily due to damage to fiber optic cables. These outages are impacting multiple parishes in Louisiana, including the state’s three largest cities, as well as several counties in Mississippi, notably the capital city of Jackson. The cause of this disruption has been identified as a severed fiber cable, which has led to a cascade of service interruptions across the region.
According to New Orleans emergency communications officials, the fiber line break has created a “regional impact,” severely affecting emergency response capabilities. Karl Fasold, the communications director for Orleans Parish, confirmed during a news conference streamed on WWL-TV that “there was a major fiber cut located in Mississippi that has taken out all of this.” He assured the public that there is currently no evidence to suggest any malicious intent behind the fiber cuts.
Mississippi officials are collaborating closely with AT&T to assess the extent of the outages. Scott Simmons, director of external affairs at the Mississippi Department of Emergency Management, indicated that AT&T is responding to a “series of fiber cuts” affecting their network. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves stated on X that the state is in constant communication with AT&T, who are deploying crews to evaluate the damage and expedite service restoration.
Local officials are advising residents to utilize alternate contact numbers while efforts to restore 911 services are underway. In addition to Louisiana and Mississippi, outages have also been reported in Fulton County, Illinois, where residents are instructed to reach out to the Canton Police Department using a non-emergency number. City officials in Canton noted that the outage has persisted for over an hour, urging residents to be patient as the timeline for restoring services remains uncertain.
In Mississippi, counties such as Forrest and Kemper are experiencing outages, while in Louisiana, Jefferson and Tangipahoa parishes, as well as the cities of Baton Rouge and Shreveport, are affected. The city of McComb in Mississippi announced that services were fully restored just before 4:30 p.m. local time in Pike County and surrounding areas. Additionally, Shreveport police reported that their 911 line would be operational again shortly after 3:30 p.m. local time, although they have noted an increase in call volume to their non-emergency dispatch lines since the outage began.
Shreveport officials emphasized that the outage has impacted 911 service across half of Mississippi and throughout Louisiana. In Tangipahoa Parish, authorities informed residents that if they encounter a busy signal when calling 911, their call will still be logged, and they will receive a callback “within seconds” from a regular number. In St. Tammany Parish, both the main non-emergency dispatch line and 911 service are currently down, and the sheriff’s office is coordinating with its IT department to establish a new contact number for residents.
In a statement to CNN, Verizon attributed the outages to a “network issue by another carrier,” clarifying that landline customers are not affected. CNN has also reached out to other providers, including T-Mobile, Consumer Cellular, and Google Fi, for their comments regarding the ongoing incidents.
