Harvard Says 911 Service Restored Following Statewide Outages

Updated June 18, 2024, at 4:28 p.m.

Harvard University issued a campus alert amid a statewide 911 outage on Tuesday afternoon, notifying recipients that the connection to emergency services from campus phones was “intermittent.”

The connection had been restored by approximately 4:25 p.m., according to a subsequent campus alert.

The origional alert encouraged affiliates to call Harvard University Police at (617) 495-1212 in the event of an emergency.

The message was preceded by a statewide emergency alert warning Massachusetts residents that 911 services were currently “down Statewide” and that “delays in public safety response may occur.”

The statewide alert encouraged recipients to call their local public safety business line directly in the event of an emergency. As of Tuesday afternoon, a cause of the outage had not been disclosed.

Other local emergency services departments also notified residents to contact their business numbers. The Cambridge Police Department posted phone numbers to contact the CPD and Cambridge Fire Department’s emergency and non-emergency lines.

In a post on X, the Boston Fire Department urged those unable to reach emergency service departments in an emergency situation to pull the nearest fire box or go to the nearest firehouse.

Additionally, there will be officers cruising throughout the city with their blue lights flashing so they can easily be spotted in case of emergency.

Earlier Tuesday, in a news conference originally convened to discuss the Boston Celtics parade, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu ’07 also addressed the outage.

“Currently the statewide 911 system is down and calls are not going through. We’ve been in touch with the state and with all the relevant officials to work on getting this resolved,” she said.