News

911 center restored

By Bill Moss, Published: April 7, 2015

Henderson County's 911 service was restored around 5:30 a.m. today after going down Tuesday afternoon.

The Henderson County 911 center went down around 2:45 p.m. Tuesday.

"We don't know" what caused it, said Maj. Frank Stout. "We've got telephone technicians working. It won't go through on 911. Our hair's fire on fire right here trying to figure out what's going on."

Thirty-seven minutes after the first announcement, the sheriff's department sent out a new advisory that 911 calls would forward automatically to the Buncombe County dispatch. "Any calls coming to the Henderson County Communications Center on 911 will be answered by Buncombe EOC and transferred back to Henderson County on a regular line for appropriate dispatch of services," Stout said.

As for backup to prevent the 911 system going down, Stout said "this is more or less plan B" of the backup. "That's part of us being able to roll to Buncombe," he said. Plans are in the works for a reciprocal agreement with another county to answer calls in case either's 911 center goes out, he said. The Buncombe 911 center handled the calls until Henderson County's service was fully restored.