The 911 systems throughout the Bay area are operational again.
- Emergency service restored, agencies examining phone system outages
- 911 calls service interrupted, problems with school systems, airports
- Issues occurred in Hillsborough, Manatee, Pinellas, Polk
There were widespread outages Wednesday after a work crew in South Florida accidentally cut an underground fiber optic line for Frontier Communications.
The result was phone systems going down for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, Tampa Police and St. Petersburg Police departments - along with schools systems, public service agencies and airports from Manatee County to Polk County.
911 service was out for about 5 1/2 hours.
"(It's) always concerning for us because our form of communication has been for years the 911 system, so people are in tune to call 911," said Corporal Larry McKinnon with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. "So anytime a system like that goes out, it's very concerning and it could potentially be dangerous for people out there because they are not aware of how to activate emergency services."
The line that was cut carried phone signals for 911 call centers in Hillsborough, Manatee and TIA, as well as lines for St. Pete police and the Polk school district.
The agencies were left scrambling to send out news alerts on social media about the phone issues, directing most people to call non-emergency lines to get through. Agencies also used reverse 911 calls to get out the message.
There were no reports of any emergency situations falling through the cracks but there were likely some 911 calls missed.
Officials said the outage impacted an estimated 200,000 people in seven counties.
The fiber optic line was repaired by Wednesday afternoon.
The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said it has hired a company to install a second 911 line to prevent the situation from occurring again.