Backup system failure during construction affected Monroe County 911 calls Saturday morning

MONROE COUNTY, N.Y. — 911 calls in Monroe County were impacted for a little over half an hour Saturday morning due to the failure of a backup system during construction at the Route 390/Scottsville Road interchange.

Normal 911 functions had been restored as of 3 p.m., the county reported Saturday afternoon.

The county reported that at about 7:05 a.m., a Frontier Network redundant system failed to engage during a planned fiber cable disconnect for the construction. The Frontier re-route switch for the 911 calls should have activated once the disconnect happened, but it did not — and callers may have received a fast-busy signal from 7:05 to 7:40 a.m.

At 7:40 a.m., all 911 calls in Monroe County, including the city of Rochester, were re-routed to the 911 center in Livingston County and are now being handled by Ontario County. they transfer those calls to the Rochester/Monroe County Emergency Communications Center for dispatch. According to the county, calls can take a few minutes to be routed through this extra step, so callers were encouraged to stay on the line. According to the county, dispatch systems to emergency services were not impacted.

Crews from the county’s Department of Environmental Services worked with Frontier Communications to re-route the fiber circuit to re-establish the connection to the 911 Center. They also were both working with the county’s Information Services department to reestablish the backup network path.