A swath of the United States was plunged into emergency communication darkness late last evening as 911 services went offline, triggering a crisis in parts of Nebraska, Texas, Nevada, and a complete blackout in South Dakota. According to reports from CBS News, the blackout commenced around 10 p.m. local time, with services flickering back to life by midnight; in the interim, frantic citizens were urged to phone alternate, non-emergency numbers for urgent help.

While South Dakota suffered an entire outage with citizens left in the lurch, places like Las Vegas, Nevada navigated the crisis by calling back those who had attempted to reach out via landlines, officials in the city resorted to social media to assuage fears stating that texts to the 911 systems were functioning when calls could not make it through. Amid this chaos, The City of Del Rio Police Department in Texas pinpointed the root of their issue to "an outage with a major cellular carrier," without pointing fingers at any specific carrier, a statement obtained by CBS News elucidated.

Yet, in amidst this instantaneous cut to the lifeline of American safety, the City of Los Angeles stood out, confirming via a Facebook post that its 911 system was bucking the trend and remained vigilant and operational, assuring Angelenos that their calls for emergency would indeed be heard and answered.

Officials reportedly assured CBS News that every desperate call made during the paralysis of the system was eventually catered to, and while the restoration of service brings a tenuous sigh of relief, the authorities have launched an investigation into the roots of this digital calamity, what remains to be seen is whether the findings will be enough to prevent a repeat of last night's disarray.