Outage impacts Flathead 911 call center

911 calls were not delivered to many Montana counties due to a network failure from late Wednesday night into the early hours of Thursday. The outage included the Flathead Emergency Communication Center.

Due to the location where the interruption occurred, Flathead County’s 911 calls were unable to be routed elsewhere. Once Flathead officials were made aware of the situation, an emergency notification went out to cellphones and TVs across the county providing an alternate number to call in the event anyone needed to report an emergency.

911 phone service was restored at approximately 3:30 a.m. on Thursday.

The Flathead Emergency Communication Center is currently working with vendors to determine the cause of the outage and to improve communications when outages occur, a media release stated.

People in Flathead County who did not receive the emergency notification should check their cellphone settings to ensure they have opted in to receive emergency notifications.