Sprint 911 Outage in Prince George's County May Last Through Wednesday

UPDATED at 11:40 p.m. BOWIE, MD — A Sprint cellular service outage that has already struck Fairfax and Arlington counties on the Virginia side has hit Prince George's County in Maryland as well, impacting 911 service, according to an statement sent by the county.

An alert sent out at about 11:30 a.m. by Fairfax County, and then by Arlington County at 12:20 p.m. and now PG County just before 2.m. states that Sprint users may receive a busy signal if they try to call 911, and therefore they should use either a landline phone or a cell phone from another provider.

Authorities said 9-1-1 service cannot be reached by text messaging. Sprint does not yet have an estimated time for restoration.

In an email to Patch.com, a Sprint spokesperson wrote: "Due to an extensive commercial power outage and fire, some Sprint wireline customers in the Metro DC Area are unable to access voice and data service. We are working aggressively to restore power and full services, and we apologize for the inconvenience to our customers."

About 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, a Sprint spokeswoman told Patch a fire occurred in DC across the street from the company's DC Switch site, which caused a loss of power and generator failure at the location.

On Tuesday night, officials said full service for Sprint cell customers may return by Wednesday evening.

Sprint users in Montgomery County, along with Arlington and Fairfax counties in Virginia, are also part of the outage.

Representatives from both Dominion Power in Northern Virginia and Pepco in Washington, D.C. say they are not aware of any power outages that caused the Sprint problems or anyone with Sprint getting in touch with their companies about the problem.

"Prince George’s County Public Safety Communications staff will continue to work closely with Sprint representatives as they work to repair their network services as soon as possible," the PG County statement reads. "We appreciate the cooperation of our citizens as we work through this critical time and we will ensure that timely notification is provided when the problem is resolved. Citizens are encouraged to direct any questions or concerns to their Sprint provider."

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