Allegheny County, Pa. 911 Back Up After Battery Fails

Jan. 02--Calls to the Allegheny County's 911 Center should now connect after technical issues caused some callers to get a busy signal Thursday morning, the county spokeswoman said.

Amie Downs had directed callers who got the busy signal to call 412-473-3056. She said that number will remain active until Friday.

Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Mike Huss said the uninterruptable power system -- the battery that keeps radio communications running in the event of a power outage -- went out around 7:15 a.m.

"We lost our radio infrastructure," Huss said. "We pretty much lost every channel but EMS Channel 2 in the city."

Officials had to dispatch first responders using phones and mobile data terminals, Huss said. He said at 8:30 a.m. that channels were coming back into use.

"We're slowly bringing them around," Huss said.

County spokeswoman Amie Downs said a technician was en route. She described the problems as "technical equipment issues," in press release.

"There's a switch down and they switched to the back-up system," Downs said.

Margaret Harding is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 412-380-8519 or mharding@tribweb.com.

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