Massachusetts experiences statewide 911 outage

The entire state of Massachusetts is experiencing an outage of its 911 emergency systems as of Tuesday afternoon, and residents experiencing emergencies are encouraged to call their local public safety offices. 

The cause of the outage, and how long the system will be down was not immediately clear. But the Boston Police Department instructed residents to pull a fire box in the case of an emergency, call local offices, or approach a police officer patrolling the city, NBC News reported.

Police officers in Boston are patrolling with their blue lights on for heightened visibility. 

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu acknowledged the shutdown during a news conference, and said the city was working with state officials to resolve the issue. 

“Calls are not going through. We’ve been in touch with the state and with all the relevant officials to work on getting this resolved,” Wu said. “There are multiple places on the police website you can find the phone numbers for all of the district stations, and those will be available also on social media.”

Wu added that if someone is experiencing an emergency, they should get themselves to the nearest hospital, fire department, or police station, regardless of the type of emergency, and the staff will make sure people get to the right place, according to the Associated Press.

The outage comes after police officials in four states saw a 911 system outage in April, which was due to a wire being cut when installing a light post. The system was restored within several hours.