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The D.C. region's 911 emergency network has suffered widespread failures over the past two years, according to a new analysis by the Washington Post. The failures started long before the June derecho storm, in which the company acknowledged failures of backup systems in different parts of the region.
There have been at least 11 outages since July 2010 in Maryland and Virginia, records and interviews conducted by the Post show. In some cases, callers received busy signals. Some outages blocked all calls in a particular area and others restricted the number of calls or did not provide location information or callback numbers.
The company has said drained batteries, faulty generators and a failure to fully explore the problem contributed to restoration delays in June. Verizon is auditing backup power systems throughout the region, according to the company.
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