911 lines in Washington state back in operation after brief issue

Washington Emergency Management announced via Twitter on Thursday that 911 lines were down across the state, although they were operational again within minutes.

Emergency Management got widespread reports from counties in both western and eastern Washington, but not everywhere, of a 911 outage impacting their systems, Emergency Management Tweeted at 4:27 p.m.

Spokane County faced the problem briefly, too, said Spokane Police Department spokesperson Julie Humphreys. A report will come out Friday detailing the cause, she said.

The state Enhanced 911 Program office reported all 911 services statewide were back online and fully functional within minutes of the first announcement. The cause was still under investigation around 5 p.m.

The Washington State Enhanced 911 (E911) Program is the result of a 1991 voter referendum directing enhanced 911 emergency communications systems to be available statewide.

Emergency Management posted a list of 10-digit backup emergency numbers for counties around the state.