FCC Investigates Storm-Related 911 Problems

The Federal Communications Commission is investigating why more than a million people in the Washington metro area lost 911 services during and after the June 29 derecho storm.

After the storm, several communications services lost the ability to provide phone service for 911 call centers.  Northern Virginia was one of the hard hit areas.

Systems in northern Virginia are controlled by Verizon, which said it lost power in the storm and several backup systems also died.

The FCC is expected to look at what went wrong and ways to prevent the problem from happening in future storms.

The public is encouraged to leave their comments at fcc.gov/comments.

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