High Point's 911 emergency call system was unavailable for more than two hours Wednesday.
It was a computer server failure that led to the shutdown just before 8.a.m., says Ellis Frazier, the city's interim 911 manager. Frazier says it's a scenario that hasn't happened in at least 25 years in High Point, if ever.
To anyone who called during the downtime, it would seem like the phone was ringing but no one was picking up.
But when they hung up, the system would alert dispatchers that a 911 call had been abandoned, just as they do whenever there's a sudden emergency call hang-up.
At that point, Frazier says, the caller got a return call from dispatchers to determine the nature of their emergency.
City of High Point officials also distributed non-emergency numbers for fire and police, as well as EMS providers for medical calls.
Technicians restored the service around 10:30.