Whitcom nonemergency line experiences phone malfunction over weekend

The nonemergency lines at Whitcom 911 are working again after experiencing a phone malfunction this weekend, but the dispatch agency continues to navigate some issues.

Susan Waltz, dispatch supervisor at Whitcom 911, said the call agency’s nonemergency lines were not working Saturday — they were able to receive incoming calls but could not make outgoing calls.

The incident also affected Whitcom’s fire alarm system, and possibly burglary alarms as well. The alarm company was unable to notify Whitcom of sounding alerts because of a connection issue.

Community members were directed to call 911 if they were experiencing a sounding alarm during the outage to ensure Whitcom was aware and could dispatch first responders. The alarm services were restored later that night, and the systems once again will notify Whitcom when activated.

Whitcom dispatchers still cannot make any outgoing calls on their nonemergency line. Waltz said the agency believes the issue is from a bad internet connection or software on its phone system, adding they are still working on identifying and fixing this issue.

Currently, Whitcom is using a separate phone from the nonemergency line to make outgoing calls until their phone system is fixed. The nonemergency line is still reachable by calling (509) 332-2521.