After 911 outage, SD state and federal reviews will follow

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – Both state and federal agencies will be investigating last week’s 911 outage that impacted at least three states including all of South Dakota’s Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs).

The outage, which lasted nearly 2 and half hours, was blamed on a “third-party light pole installation” by service provider Lumen Technologies. Lumen Technologies, formally known as CenturyLink, has a $36 million, five-year contract with the South Dakota Department of Public Safety to provide next generation 911 services in South Dakota. The contract has an option for one additional 5-year renewal.

On Tuesday, Metro Communications Director Mike Gramlick told Minnehaha County commissioners State 911 Coordinator Jason Husby would be providing a statewide after-action review.

“That is when we would expect to at least see that first idea of how they’re going to manage continuity moving forward,” Gramlick told commissioners. “Obviously, a week-in it’s difficult to imagine that the state will have a response program ready, but I am confident that working together with that partner as a state, all 28 PSAPs will have an answer to that.”

Gramlick said Metro Communications, the PSAP for Minnehaha County, has the same information as the public in regards to what happened to cause the outage. He said he was proud of the local action taken to handle interruption of “critical infrastructure for our country.”

Gramlick said 911 callers are 90% from wireless calls like smartphones and cell phones. He said the Wireless Emergency Alert, a short emergency alert sent to mobile devices, was the most effective way to let people know 911 was down.

State lawmakers passed and Gov. Kristi Noem passed a bill increasing South Dakota phone customers’ bill by 75-cents each month for 911 emergency service.

KELOLAND News reached out to the State 911 Coordinator about any steps or plans the state will implement following the outage. Any response will be added to this story.

Lumen fined $867,000 for February 2022 outage in SD

At the federal level, the Federal Communications Commission posted on social media it was aware of 911-related outages and investigating. In a statement released last week, FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said the federal agency will get to the bottom of the cause and impact.

“When you call 911 in an emergency, it is vital that call goes through,” Rosenworcel said in a statement.

Only six months ago, the FCC released a 24-page settlement for 911 violations involving Lumen and South Dakota counties. The FCC issued a penalty of $867,000 against Lumen Technologies for “apparently willfully and repeatedly failing to reasonably design and operate its network to ‘transmit all 911 calls,’ and to ‘notify, as soon as possible’ Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) for two 911 outages that occurred in February 2022.”

The FCC report says two South Dakota PSAP’s experienced an outage affecting 911 calls for nearly five hours. Lumen did not notify the PSAPs until days after the outage ended.

A few days later, a outage impacted Bismarck, North Dakota for more than seven hours.

“ Lumen apparently willfully and repeatedly violated our rules and created a significant threat to the life and property of tens of thousands of people,” the FCC settlement published in Oct. 2023 said.

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