ROCKINGHAM -- Instead of the usual ringing of phones at Rockingham County's Consolidated 911 Center, things went silent Tuesday.
"The system is designed to go into a complete power failure so we lost power," said director Rodney Cates.
A little before 9, wires in the technology room sparked.
"Then the smoldering of the wires generated the amount of smoke," Cates said.
That then caused the entire center to evacuate leaving the calls to ring before they were automatically transferred.
"We are already what is called 'their overflow,'" said Director Melanie Neal of Guilford Metro 911, where all of the missed calls were transferred to.
"So the 911 calls would immediately start coming to us as an overflow if no one is answering theirs," Neal said.
The two counties were already in works of a backup plan, but before they could simulate calls they were put into action after Tuesday's fire.
"We were ready to start deploying the strategies for having them simulate having to evacuate their building and come here," Neal said. "But it actually happened. It wasn't a simulation."
Instead of practicing Rockingham County went to Guilford Metro's backup center and waited. The Rockingham dispatch crew were still working at the backup center.
When a call was transferred to Guilford County they then called Rockingham's officers to handle those incidents.
"We evacuate the building, we take portable radios with us to maintain radio contact with our field units. It may be delayed very slightly but the service never stops," Cates said.
The state requires every police call center to have a backup plan if anything, like a fire, were to leave 911 calls unanswered. It was a partnership both counties were working on but hadn't implemented until Tuesday.
After more than six hours, Rockingham was back on but because of the two counties, no calls were left unanswered.