Technical issue shuts down police and fire department phone lines in Metro Vancouver

Police departments and fire fighting agencies had their non-emergency phone lines go down briefly Thursday morning.

E-Comm, BC’s largest emergency communications centre, blamed the outage on a “technical issue.”

See also

• SFU approves tuition increases for majority of students, despite protests
• Surrey man arrested for allegedly punching soccer mom at West Vancouver match

Although it did not specify what detachments and cities were affected, it appears the Vancouver Police Department had its service knocked out.

In you’re trying to make a non-emergency call in Vancouver right now and it’s not urgent, @EComm911_info is asking you to please call later. https://t.co/AoZvQ9xGnR

— Vancouver Police (@VancouverPD) March 21, 2019

E-Comm said some non-emergency lines were not available around 11:20 am, and urged the public not to call 911 unless it was an actual emergency.

“Please try non-emergency numbers later,” the service wrote in a tweet.

The issue caused lines to be busy when people called the non-emergency numbers of certain detachments.

The issue was resolved shortly before noon.

See also

• SFU approves tuition increases for majority of students, despite protests
• Surrey man arrested for allegedly punching soccer mom at West Vancouver match

UPDATE: Non-emergency numbers for #MetroVancouver police & fire agencies are again operational. Lines will be busy. If not pressing, please call later. Thank you for your patience. FYI @TELUSsupport @MetroVancouver https://t.co/2ZLvvJWRAY

— E-Comm 9-1-1 (@EComm911_info) March 21, 2019