Two calls reported during MACC outage

MOSES LAKE - Only two calls were made from the Quincy area to the Multi Agency Communication Center (MACC) during an outage Tuesday morning.

The 9-1-1 service for Quincy, George and Crescent Bar was turned off between midnight and 3 a.m. Tuesday morning.

Quincy Police Department, Grant County Fire District 3 and The Grant County Sheriff's Office reported no problems during the outage.

More work is scheduled from Wednesday night at 11 p.m. until Thursday at 6 a.m.

Residents in Quincy, George and Crescent Bar can continue to call 9-1-1 while the repairs are made. A dispatcher will receive the calls and send appropriate emergency services.

Stephanie Beasly, a Frontier Communications communications manager, explained the outage was caused because the company needed to repair a fiber optic line in Malaga, south of Wenatchee, because of a gunshot. The repair impacted all voice and data service in the area.

"The repair was complete with no problems," Beasly stated. "The entire network was down from just after midnight to 2:30 a.m. The 9-1-1 circuits were back up shortly after 2 a.m."

All 9-1-1 calls from the Quincy, George and Crescent Bar area, including cellphone calls, are routed through Frontier Communications.

The calls couldn't be rerouted Tuesday through a different prefix, Mary Allen, MACC director, said; adding a call from the 787 prefix area can't be rerouted through the 765 prefix because it goes through a different carrier.

"I don't know if I can explain it to you without years of education," she said. "Each company has their own routes, their own lines. They don't share lines. It would have been like trying to transfer from Sprint to Verizon or from Frontier to Verizon. They're two separate things. Two separate companies."