Quite frankly this news is really unacceptable. They should have major redundancy as well as routing to another regional center. Rarely do any call centers go down. 911 should never go down. There are many fail safes that can keep them operational. I'll be curious to hear the explanation.

I agree, perhaps the City should focus on issues such as this rather than worry about vandalized trees or new trash schedules.

There may also be quite a few citizens who may have real differences in how they define the term emergency. Some will call for anything, others only if someone is near death.

Herndon editor Leslie here — Herndon residents are tied in with Fairfax County's 911 call system so they should follow the same directions from the county as those who live in unincorporated areas. Go directly to a police or fire station in an emergency. If you need assistance in a non-emergency situation, you can call the Herndon Police Department at 703-435-6846.

In Vienna, it's not just 911, it's everything phone related. I have Verizon FIOS and, although Internet and TV are fine, I can't make any calls on our land line phone. Go ahead and laugh at me for still having a land line phone, but the same thing goes for my Blackberry, which is on AT&T. Nothing about this on the Verizon or AT&T websites, I can't get through to their support desks, and their troubleshooting buttons don't work, so there's no way to find out what the problem is or how long it may last. I just emailed my relatives in other states to let them know not to bother calling me to find out if we are okay. Why can't Verizon and AT&T email the media?

So let me understand this.
If your house is on fire go to the fire dept....or if you have a life threatening medical condition call the police? Those of us that have internet may have read this..but what about the elderly? In a life threatening emergency it is hard enough to call 911.
Do we even know that the phone lines to the police work? From everything I have seen today every policeman is directing traffic at lights that aren't working.
At least we know now,god forbid in a disaster to not count on 911.

Who dropped the ball on this one? And how are they going to fix it?

911 failure is a dire safety concern. Once the worst is over, I hope everyone contacts their Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to tell them that this is a priority issue. It is very easy to contact your supervisor; either online or by phone.

Having a land line phone is a great idea, I still have mine exactly for the purpose of emergencies. Your line has to be a POTS line - the old Ma Bell Lines - nothing digital. I am sure Verizon doesn't let people know the truth about FIOS very clearly.

Our Comcast phone line has been working the whole time. It sounds like something went wrong with FIOS.

The failure of the 911 call center is totally unacceptable. The County taxpayers just spent millions of dollars for a new Public Safety Communications Center. There needs to be full investigation into why this happened and what can be done to make sure it never happens again.

Well someone at Verizon screwed the pooch.

I do not believe this was a failure of "the 911 center.". The taxpayers have benefitted and will continue to benefit for years from its investment. And lets not forget about the dedicated men and women who were and are every day on the front lines of public safety. While you are home taking care of YOUR family, they are answering and responding to your calls. Many are called in from off-duty status because staffing levels are low, but they respond. By the way, if Verizon cannot deliver your call, they cannot answer it. Verizon's infrastructure that supports 9-1-1 throughout much of Virginia is antiquated with little having bee done over the years to insure a reliable system. Do not blame the 9-1-1 center, ask Verizon first why the call isn't getting to the locality to be answered. P.S. have you thanked a public safety communications professional today? Not a fire, ambulance or police response wheel turns without these dedicated men and women who are often forgotten are there, supporting the safety of the community and first responders. Without them, who will answer "the call?"

If you read back through the notes I think you'll find that the pros who answer the phones at 911 are not (and of course should not) being held accountable for this incident. There are however people who DO work at or are contracted to work for 911 who ARE responsible for the design, health and maintenance of the 911 technology and telephony infrastructure. 911 has an agreement with Verizon as their vendor to provide services. Ultimately the 911 team responsible for contracting and designing the disaster recovery plans and their vendor, Verizon ARE responsible and accountable for ensuring that 911 is operational. The fact that there was not a reliable redundant system in place for disaster recovery is unacceptable and those responsible should be held accountable to fix the design flaws that contributed to this incident. It could have been completely avoided with the proper fail safes in place.

My reply is in response to suggesting underground cables. John cited rats would be a problem in chewing through the cables, with all due respect John there are plenty of rats in England - where this is widely used - and Florida may have the answer regarding rodents. My primary concern is, that the people of Fairfax or anywhere else, will not have to undergo this type of thing again. As for repairs, this is where my job came into play, I had to supply the blueprint to the engineers, so that they would know where to dig down if necessary - nothing is perfect, but maybe it could be taken into consideration as the health, safety and well being of people have to come before money.