Many questions remain about why officials in New Brunswick did not use the Alert Ready system during Wednesday’s phone outage.
The outage impacted Bell Aliant customers throughout the Maritimes and also affected 911 services across the region.
New Brunswick RCMP said in a tweet that they requested an emergency alert be sent out, but it appears no alert was ever sent.
The Alert Ready system allows authorities to send emergency alerts through smartphones, television and radio.
Our newsroom requested an interview with NBEMO on Wednesday afternoon but was instead sent a three-sentence statement.
Geoffrey Downey, a spokesperson for NBEMO, said the service outage caused some anxiety as it affected 911 service.
“We appreciate Bell’s quick action to restore service, and are looking forward to learning what happened,” said Downey in an email.
“The system is supposed to have redundancies that prevent outages, so it’s essential to public health and safety that Bell learns from the outage.”
Downey did not respond to follow-up questions about the RCMP’s request and why no alert was received by residents.
Phone service was restored shortly before 11 a.m. Wednesday.
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