Merrimac police this morning were taking emergency 911 calls on a backup cell telephone and directing to regular calls to another number as a Verizon landline outage began late last night.
Police Chief Eric M. Shears told WHAV emergency 911 service went out at 11 p.m., Monday night, but calls were quickly transferred to a backup mobile telephone. Officers are also unable to hear calls to the department’s non-emergency, but are are able to tell callers to temporarily dial 978-891-0757. Shears said the department is prepared for such outages.
Shears said he believes the outage is townwide and may be affecting some area communities. A spokesperson for Verizon said he is looking into the issue.