Details On 911 Outage That Struck Michigan, Including Calhoun County

Details are beginning to surface, concerning a 911 communication meltdown that swept across Michigan Tuesday afternoon. Calhoun, Eaton, Hillsdale, Washtenaw, and as far north as Grand Traverse County, all reported the 911 outage that struck their systems.  

The state network was able to isolate the problem and get 911 back online, but say they won’t know what caused the issue anytime soon. Grand Traverse County 911 Director Jason Torrey told UpNorthLive.com that the network provider, located in the U.P. was the culprit. He immediately contacted the provider, Peninsula Fiber Network, which handles 911 routing for all the calls in the state of Michigan.  

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The Calhoun County Consolidated Dispatch Authority reports that their system lost connectivity to the 911 phone network at around 3:18 p.m. The newly activated text-to-911 service did remain operational and they were able to alert citizens who had chosen to join the Smart911 wireless alert system that was launched in August of 2022. Users received an alert that provided a phone number that was routed through a temporary cell-based backup system. According to a CCCDA Facebook posting,  

CCCDA staff deployed a cellular-based backup system to establish a 10-digit line for both incoming and outgoing calls. That number was sent out via an emergency alert, including through the emergency alert system and a wireless emergency alert. Text-to-911 did remain operational during this outage. 

Calhoun County was informed at around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, that the statewide system had been repaired and back to normal operations. 

Calhoun County Consolidated Dispatch Authority broke into action, deploying a cellular-based backup system to establish a 10-digit line for both incoming and outgoing calls.