By EMS1 Staff
DURANGO, Colo. — After several 911 outages that affected dispatch centers across the state, communications centers have filed complaints with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.
Clay Center Dispatch reported that agencies were not aware of the outages for hours. The complaints were filed against at least four telephone providers.
During one 10-hour outage June 17, some of the city of Durango’s 911 calls were not routed to a neighboring town.
“As a consequence of the outages and lack of notification, the citizens of these communities were put in danger,” the complaint stated.
Dispatch agencies have requested that the commission require telecommunications providers to provide a plan to communicate with the centers in the event of an outage.
“We feel collaborating with service providers on alternate methods or use of different technology to build diversity and redundancy is the path to success in solving this problem,” the complaint stated.
“Overall, our goal is to ensure we have those relationships in place so we can provide the emergency services to the community,” Many Stollsteimer, executive director of Western Colorado Regional Dispatch Center, said.
A hearing for the complaints is scheduled for November.