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Lawmakers search for answers to 911 failure

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Erie County's 911 system went dark last week after the center overheated and the cooling system failed forcing a shutdown. 

Thursday at 1 p.m. the county's top lawmakers will meet to discuss what led to the failure of the system and the two backup systems in place. 

County public safety workers said during controlled shutdowns the backup systems have worked but when the crisis became real they didn't.  

Erie County Legislator Edward Rath called for a hearing just hours after the shutdown.
 
The 911 system was offline from 3:30 a.m. to 7 a.m. In a case like this calls should be rerouted to Amherst, Tonawanda, Cheektowaga and Hamburg. 
 
 
 

 

"Calls that came into 911 if you stayed on the line would have been answered," said Erie County Executive Mar Poloncarz. "Some people hung up I imagine but we have no idea of that, but we do know if individuals called 911 they were answered if they stayed on the line long enough they were just rerouted to Tonawanda and Buffalo Fire."
 
Poloncarz says the emergency systems in place are run by Siemens and Verizon.