Imagine calling 911, and all you get is no response.
This was the situation in many states across the United States after a Microsoft Office 360’s outage crashed Monday evening.
The outage forced more than 500,000 businesses that used the service, to manage with the limited resources available, while the tech experts handled the issue. This forced police departments to run to social media to tell people that other ways to contact 911 were available. This outage comes less than a week after Google’s issue with its crushing.
On Twitter, a couple of states commented on the outage.
The city of Redmond, Washington state tweeted“As of 5 p.m., City phones and emails are experiencing intermittent outages related to a larger Microsoft 365 outage,we are hoping the issue is resolved shortly. Sorry for any inconvenience.”
“ATTENTION: The 911 lines are not operational nationwide. This is for phone calls and text messaging. If you need police, fire or emergency medical assistance in Minneapolis, please call 612-348-2345. We will advise when this issue is fixed, “Minneapolis police’s(Minnesota state)tweet read.
Delaware State Police said in a statement that the dispatch centres were experiencing statewide interruptions and anyone’s attempt to call 911 either by cell phone or landline would experience a busy signal.
The statement further stated that the issue was being addressed and the unavailability period remained unknown. The police department urged people to text all and type their emergency in the message field.
Crystal MN police in Minnesota state asked people to call local fire station for help in a tweet that read,
Prescott Valey PD tweeted, “POLICE ALERT: 911 lines are down statewide. For emergencies, please call Prescott Valley Police Dispatch at 928-772-9267 until further notice.”
The Tucson police in Arizona also asked residents to contact their local number as well in a tweet that read, “911 services are down in the City of Tucson. If you need to make an emergency call, dial 520-372-8011. We will let you know when 911 is back online.”
The Oro Valley Police in Arizona said they had fixed the problem. The tweet they sent read, “It’s fixed! 911 is back up for all agencies!