LINCOLN- On Wednesday, officials representing the Nebraska Public Service Commission faced questions about the reliability of the emergency call system after another 911 outage plagued Lincoln last week. Despite rising tensions, the Commission assured state senators that their probe into the recent outage is a top priority.

"It's a major concern for us," said Dan Watermeier, chairman of the five-member PSC board. Some senators, however, weren't happy with the answers they received. "It strikes me that this could happen again," said Sen. Wendy DeBoer, "When one fire can bring 911 down, we're in trouble."

Watermeier, a former state senator, and David Sankey, the 911 director for the PSC, said the probe is exceedingly complicated, and that it involves both a review of legal contracts with service providers and an examination of whether or not the outage was caused by an equipment issue. "We know fiber optic lines are going to get cut," said Sankey, "We need these 911 systems to be as redundant and robust as possible."

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