Emergency sevices "offline"

- Thu 25th Apr 2002

At around 6.30 this evening a telephone fault caused the start of major disruption to emergency services in Hampshire the Isle of Wight and parts of Wiltshire...The fault, the cause of which is still unknown at this time, has effected 999 emergency service calls and internal communications for Police, Ambulance, Fire and Coastguard around the region.

Emergency notices were flashed up on TV screens advising people to call at their local police or fire stations in case of emergency. It is not known at this time whether the part time stations on Hayling were manned during this incident, or local residents were being advised to travel to Havant to seek assistance in an emergency.

Services are now being restored, with 999 calls being routed through call centres in Dorset that were unaffected by the fault. Although a special phone line has been set up, Dorset Police says at one point, it could only pass on information using e-mail.

Extra police and coastguard patrols have been put in place to compensate for the communication difficulties.

The public are currently being advised to contact the services only in the case of an emergency and to leave less urgent matters until the problem has sorted.

By forum user, Mat