Severed fibre optic line leads to 911 outage

Manitoba 911 service was restored Wednesday hours after a reported fibre cable cut rendered the emergency number offline to many residents outside Winnipeg.

Bell MTS sent out a notice at 4:13 p.m. stating that connection had been restored to the Brandon Public-Safety Communications Centre, which lost its connection following a cut fibre cable at an undisclosed location.

“Both wireless and wireline emergency call services are available again and the affected Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) in Brandon is reconnected,” Bell said. “We thank Manitobans for their patience as we work to address the damaged infrastructure.”

The company is investigating a “third-party fibre cut” that led to the service disruption in rural Manitoba. The Brandon service is one of two public safety answering points and serves “most of the province outside the Winnipeg area.”

The Brandon Police Service announced it was affected by a 911 outage shortly after 1 p.m.

An emergency notification was sent to some Manitoba cellphones shortly before 2:45 p.m.

Around 3:30 p.m., Bell MTS told the Sun that a temporary solution had been established to get mobile phone calls through to emergency services.

“A backup system is now allowing the majority of wireless customers to be rerouted to 911,” Bell said.

Manitobans who were unable to get through to 911 were directed to call their local police, fire or ambulance department’s direct 10-digit phone number or go directly to the nearest fire station, police station or hospital emergency room during the outage.

Brandon Fire and Emergency Services Chief Terry Parlow said the department’s operations were not impacted by the disruption, and fire crews remained on standby as normal and ready to react to emergencies.

“It’s not changing the way we respond,” he said.

“We are just trying our best to ensure people know where best to call,” Parlow said. “What we’ve done is provided the direct line to fire department.”

The City of Brandon posted direct numbers online for residents to call in the case of need for fire services, ambulance or police during the outage.

Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett said the issue was of “great concern” and that the city was notified quickly after the outage began.

“People really need 911. It’s an important service, so we do want to have it on at all times,” Fawcett said. “We do want to make sure it’s up and running as fast as possible.”

Manitoba RCMP stayed in contact with the 911 service provider, spokesman Kevin Engstrom said. The provincial RCMP also offered a direct line for the public to use given a failure in 911 connection.

Shared Health, which operates ambulance service in rural Manitoba, also provided a direct number for residents to call.

Winnipeg’s public safety answering point was unaffected by the cable cut.

The Winnipeg Police Service did not have any service disruptions, spokesman Const. Pat Saydak said.

“Our only issue would be if we need to transfer a call to Brandon, until they get a 10-digit dial working,” he wrote in an email.

Bell notified the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission about the outage, which is required, said CRTC spokeswoman Mirabella Salem.

“The CRTC expects an update once the issue has been resolved and Bell will be required to provide a post-outage report within 14 days of resolution,” Salem wrote in an email.

Manitoba Innovation and New Technology Minister Mike Moroz criticized Bell and its communication with Manitobans and the provincial government after past outages.

“On this particular occasion, they did in fact contact my office right away and have made us aware of the situation,” he said.

Moroz wants Bell to be transparent about causes of 911 outages and the steps taken to try to prevent them from happening again.

“There have been entirely too many of these incidents in the last number of months, and we’re deeply concerned about it,” he said. “We’re really anxious to ensure Manitobans can be confident 911 service is there when they need it.”

In June, Bell said Manitoba will be ready to switch to a modern, next generation 911 network by the end of 2026.

» cmcdowell@brandonsun.com, with files from Chris Kitching