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Glitch in computer downs 911 system

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Failure at Verizon office in Long Beach leads to outages in emergency line; service has been restored.A computer glitch is being blamed for a massive outage of the 911 emergency telephone system that affected Huntington Beach and Newport Beach, as well as other areas of Orange and Los Angeles counties, for the better part of Tuesday, officials said.

Phone service was restored by Tuesday afternoon and the 911 system is now working, officials said.

While the 911 system was down, people were instructed to call alternative numbers if they needed emergency assistance.

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The outage was caused by an “equipment failure” in the Long Beach central office of Verizon communications and was not related to the recent thunderstorm and rainfall that hit the area, said Verizon spokesman Jon Davies.

The malfunction, noticed at 2:20 a.m. Tuesday, occurred in a computer that is responsible for routing phone calls, Davies said. Both Huntington Beach and Newport Beach Police Departments did not report any safety problems resulting from the downed 911 system.

The city of Laguna Beach also experienced phone problems, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

The Costa Mesa Police Department said the outage did not affect the city’s 911 system.

Huntington Beach Police activated their emergency operations center early Tuesday to handle the 911 system failure, said Huntington Beach Lt. Craig Junginger.

Incoming 911 calls from within the city are normally received at the dispatch center within the police department. Due to the outage, the dispatch center was not receiving 911 calls from most places in the city. However, emergency calls placed from the city’s downtown area were getting through, Junginger said.

John Britton, an SBC spokesman, said the outage was “a Verizon issue.”

Phone systems throughout the Huntington Beach area were down, including all police department phone numbers, Junginger said.

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