If a cyberattack takes down a city's 911 system, how would you actually be able to reach help?

With cyberattacks on city 911 systems becoming more common, what would you actually do in that situation if you needed emergency help?

In most cases like this, calling 911 itself still works — as seen with the Suisun City incident, cities typically have backup arrangements (often routing through a neighboring county's dispatch center) specifically so a local system failure doesn't cut off access to emergency services entirely. That said, it's worth knowing a few things in case a local outage is more severe: if 911 genuinely isn't connecting, many areas have a non-emergency police/fire line you can call instead, which is worth having saved in your phone rather than looking up during an actual emergency. If you're physically able to, going directly to a fire station, hospital, or police station is always an option regardless of phone system status. City and county government social media accounts and official websites are typically where updated information gets posted fastest during an active incident, since dispatchers on backup systems may have limited ability to communicate anything beyond taking your call. And generally: having a family emergency plan that doesn't solely depend on a phone call — a physical meeting point, a way to reach family members if cell networks are congested or down — is good practice regardless of the specific cause of a communications outage, whether that's a cyberattack, a natural disaster, or a simple network failure.