Officials say technical glitch, not sabotage, was reportedly behind Friday’s emergency call outage.
Governor Josh Shapiro and state emergency officials confirmed Saturday that 911 services across Pennsylvania have been fully restored after a system disruption Friday afternoon that impacted emergency calls in multiple counties.
In a statement posted just after midnight, the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) announced the outage had been resolved and said it would continue investigating the root cause of the issue. “We worked with counties to fully test that the system is operational,” the agency wrote on social media. “Please do not call 911 for testing purposes; leave lines open for true emergencies.”
Though the disruption was initially described as a “statewide intermittent 911 outage” in a wireless emergency alert, officials later clarified that the system did not experience a full outage. “This isn’t an outage in the classic sense,” said PEMA Director Randy Padfield during a Friday evening press conference. “The system had intermittent issues, but most 911 calls were still being delivered.”
According to Padfield, the issue began around 2 p.m. when a 911 network provider reported problems with call routing, initially affecting Delaware County. The provider, a third-party contractor working with PEMA, alerted the agency’s internal 911 team and began troubleshooting. Shortly after, similar problems were reported in other counties, prompting officials to issue a public alert around 3:30 p.m. out of what Padfield called “an abundance of caution.”
The alert advised residents experiencing issues with 911 to use their county’s non-emergency line instead and to monitor official county websites and social media for updates. In some cases, residents also received follow-up calls from county agencies to provide information and ensure public awareness.
Governor Shapiro emphasized that the disruption appeared to be the result of a technical problem, not malicious interference. “Our team got on it immediately yesterday, restored 911 capabilities relatively quickly and also put out guidance on what folks should do in that interim,” Shapiro said Saturday. “I thought they handled it really well; they worked closely with our county officials.”
Padfield noted that while most calls went through, some may have lacked critical information such as caller location or phone number. Residents were urged to continue using 911 for emergencies, but to turn to seven-digit administrative lines if their calls failed or lacked a response.
PEMA reiterated its warning for residents not to test the 911 system unnecessarily, and to reserve it for actual emergencies. Officials also advised residents to answer calls from unknown or county government numbers during the disruption, as some local agencies made outreach efforts by phone.
The agency confirmed it is working with technical experts and the affected service provider to determine whether the glitch stemmed from a hardware or software issue. Updates will be provided as the investigation continues.
