Bell outage continues to affect B.C. police departments, taxes 911 operators

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Service disruption for Bell customers is affecting local police departments and taxing the province’s 911 operators.

“Right now we can receive 911 calls from Bell customers but our concern is if–for whatever reason–that call becomes disconnected we have no way of calling them back and connecting with them because of the outage that is happening province-wide,” says Jasmine Bradley with E-Comm 911.

Bradley says people making 911 calls should use a cell phone with service from another provider, or a landline.

She also urges people to be patient while some non-emergency numbers at local police departments are out of service. Metro Vancouver Transit Police, Burnaby RCMP and Delta Police all reported issues with their phone lines Sunday.

“One of our concerns with the outage is that callers are phoning 911 to report non-emergency calls,” she explains. “We just really want to make sure that people understand we can’t take non-emergency reports over the 911 line. These lifelines need to be kept for real emergencies where first responders are required to help people right away.”

People who need to make non-emergency reports are encouraged to either postpone or to try using a landline.

Bell posted a statement to Twitter Sunday saying the outage–which began Saturday afternoon–was called by a landslide near Boston Bar which knocked out a third-party fibre line.

Lower Mainland municipalities including Delta, Abbotsford, New Westminster and Port Coquitlam reported problems making and receiving calls on city phones Saturday

The City of Vancouver reported similar issues Sunday.

There is not estimate from Bell for when service will resume.

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