Saying CenturyLink has "fallen short of its obligation," Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson is calling for people impacted by the hours-long outage last month to speak up.
The outage that crippled 911 phone systems across the country lasted for more than 12 hours. About three-quarters of the 911 systems around Washington state were having issues.
It was the second lengthy outage of the emergency call system managed by CenturyLink since 2004.
"For the second time, CenturyLink has fallen short of its obligation to provide reliable 911 services for Washingtonians," Ferguson said. "If you called for help during this outage, only to be met with a busy signal, please share your story with my office. We want to know exactly how CenturyLink's failure impacted the people of our state."
Though the outage impacted system nationwide, the West Coast saw the most significant impacts.
The state's Utilities & Transportation Commission imposed a $2.9 million penalty for the 2014 outage.
The FCC announced it would investigate the nationwide outage in December. And the Washington state Utilities & Transportation Commission launched an investigation of its own.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai released the following statement:
"When an emergency strikes, it’s critical that Americans are able to use 911 to reach those who can help. The CenturyLink service outage is therefore completely unacceptable, and its breadth and duration are particularly troubling. I’ve directed the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau to immediately launch an investigation into the cause and impact of this outage. This inquiry will include an examination of the effect that CenturyLink’s outage appears to have had on other providers’ 911 services. I have also spoken with CenturyLink to underscore the urgency of restoring service immediately. We will continue to monitor this situation closely to ensure that consumers’ access to 911 is restored as quickly as possible.”
Those impacted by the outage in December as asked to email their story to 911outage@atg.wa.gov.