JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) – Last week’s 911 outage in Mississippi raised some serious concerns.

“This did not affect radio communications among any of the sheriff’s deputies, the volunteer fire departments, the city police departments or the city firefighters. It did not affect that at all,” said Brian Grantham, Rankin County EOC director.

He said the outage was caused by a rare double cut in AT&T’s fiber optic lines. Once confirmed, emergency teams quickly activated contingency plans, pushing alerts through social media and mass notifications.

“We immediately went to social media, started getting the word out to please call our administration line,” Grantham stated.

He said backup numbers are not just for rare outages, but part of a broader preparedness strategy.

While AT&T worked to resolve the outage, officials encouraged residents to keep local emergency numbers handy and stay informed through official channels.