(The Center Square) – Iowa residents are urged to use their cell phones if they need to call 911 for emergencies due to an outage affecting landlines across the state.
The Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management said the outage is due to an issue with the service provider, Lumen Technologies.
Lumen is the same provider for Nevada, Nebraska and South Dakota. The three states experienced an outage in April after a third party damaged a utility pole, company officials told The Center Square.
State homeland security officials said that in addition to calling from a cell phone, residents can text emergency centers in all 99 of Iowa’s counties.
“When 911 outages occur in our state, responsible parties will conduct a thorough investigation to understand what happened and why it happened so those involved can review if changes are needed to reduce future outages,” the department said in a news release.
A representative from Lumen Technologies did not immediately respond to a message from The Center Square. WHO in Des Moines said the issue is caused by a water pipe break at the company’s office there.