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After 911 outage in WA, US, CenturyLink will be investigated

Starting Thursday, the company experienced a nationwide issue that impacted the ability for some people to call 911, including CenturyLink customers in many parts of Washington state.

CenturyLink will be investigated after an outage left people in Washington state and across the nation without access to 911.

The FCC called for an investigation of the Louisiana-based phone and internet service provider on Friday. The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission also said it would investigate the service outage. 

Starting Thursday, the company experienced a nationwide issue that impacted the ability for some people to call 911, including CenturyLink customers in many parts of Washington state. 

An emergency alert pinged phones late Thursday night across the state, warning them of the issue. The Spokane Police Department said Spokane County was not impacted by the outage. 

On Thursday night, CenturyLink tweeted that its engineers identified a "network element" that was impacting customers. 

The company said it estimated services would be fully restored within four hours. But after seeing "positive progress," CenturyLink discovered some "additional technical problems" early Friday morning.

"We continue to make good progress with our recovery efforts and we are working tirelessly until restoration is complete. We apologize for the disruption," CenturyLink wrote on Twitter

Spokane County police told KREM 2 that cellphones should have been working during the outage but anyone who had trouble reaching 911 should call call Crime Check at 509-456-2233. 

Here are other numbers to call if you experience problems reaching 911:

Pend Oreille County: 509-447-1980

Asotin, Moscow and Whitman County: 509-332-2521

Ferry County: 509-775-3132 

Multiple counties and emergency management agencies across the Inland Northwest posted other numbers to reach emergency services on their Twitter or Facebook pages. Most non-emergency services appeared to be working.

The Grant County Sheriff's Office reminded people not to call 911 to test their phone service, as this overwhelms the call center and prevents emergency calls from getting through to dispatchers. 

CenturyLink released an initial statement on Twitter explaining that its network “is experiencing a disruption affecting customer services.”

“We know how important these services are to our customers and we are working to restore services as quickly as possible," the company said.

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