[COUNCIL BLUFFS] – Pottawattamie County Emergency Management Agency Director Doug Reed reports “9-1-1 Communications Officials in Pottawattamie County have discovered an 9-1-1 service outage impacting Verizon Wireless customers throughout the county. There is no indication as to the cause or potential duration of the outage. All Verizon Wireless customers living or working in Pottawattamie County should call 712-328-5737 and press Option #1 for access to emergency services OR call 9-1-1 from another non-Verizon phone number. This policy will be in effect until normal service is restored.”

Reed says also, “These types of disruptions are planned for, and the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office 9-1-1 Communications Center has excellent redundancy and emergency procedures in place for situations just like this.” Verizon customers in Pottawattamie County should monitor local media outlets and Emergency Management’s Facebook and twitter pages for updates. Also, residents should sign up for Alert Iowa emergency notifications at https://pcema-ia.org.

Pott. County EMA

“The first alert we send is through Alert Iowa,” said Doug Reed. The system was used this morning for the 9-1-1 outage and distributed over 35,000 alerts by multiple methods (voice, email, text, social media). “The system isn’t just for weather notifications. Real-life, everyday emergency notifications are sent over this system. We can’t inform you if we can’t contact you, so sign up today to help keep yourself, your family, and your coworkers safe.”