By Mary Thompson Reno Gazette-Journal January 16th, 2001

Lyon County’s 911 emergency call system crashed Monday, sending all calls to Carson City Sheriff’s emergency dispatch.

A fouled computer board caused the 9:10 a.m. malfunction that shut the Motorola system down, officials said. It won’t likely be fixed until sometime today, when technicians are able to install a new component.

Lt. Jeff Page said the county typically gets about 75 emergency calls a day. Those calls will be forwarded to the Carson City Sheriff’s office until the system is repaired.

Carson City dispatcher Donna Milton said the phones have been quiet.

“We’ve only had one call on my shift so far,” Milton said. “It’s not overloading our system yet but if they get something going on, it could.”

Page said a call to 911 will ring Carson City dispatchers, who take the emergency information and forward it to Lyon County dispatchers, who call out emergency workers.

“It’s going to cause a little bit of a delay (in response) but not much, maybe a minute or two,” Page said.

To keep 911 lines in Carson City free, Page asked that non-emergency calls be dialed to 463-6600 in the Yerington and Smith Valley areas. All other portions of Lyon County should use 577-5021.

http://www.rgj.com/news2/stories/news/979710267.html

-- Doris (nocents@bellsouth.net), January 16, 2001