Kansas officials concerned about 911 service

Kansas officials say they are concerned about the state’s 911 service, after a nearly three-hour outage across southern Kansas during the weekend.

It’s at least the third major disruption to 911 service in the state in four years. An audit in 2018 warned the system was at risk of outages affecting emergency departments.

A 911 Coordinating Council has been working for years to move Kansas to the next generation of service, called NG911.

Rep. John Carmichael, a Wichita Democrat who is a member of the council, says the state has ignored the basic requirement to have a redundant system in case of a widespread outage.