MARSHALL — A router located in Ruthton was blamed for the 911 emergency system to shut down in southwest Minnesota for more than six hours Sunday.

According to Lyon County Sheriff Mark Mather, the system was down from 2:53 p.m. until 9:37 p.m. when testing was completed. Mather said the problem was at the control box of the backbone of the system controlled by CenturyLink and the state of Minnesota.

“The router failed, and counties had no control over it,” Mather said Monday.

He said he was reluctant to use the “Code Red” that indicates a countywide emergency, but he finally did. Fortunately, there weren’t many emergencies during that time period.

“We did the best we could under the circumstances. We’re still looking into this and trying to figure out why it happened. This is a rare problem that I hope never happens again. I’m sure all the other county sheriffs in southwest Minnesota are saying the same thing,” Mather said.

“Lyon County 911 has two dispatchers answering calls and each can put one call on hold while answering a second. Plus, each county has a rollover system that can send the call to a neighboring county without missing a beat. Most callers wouldn’t even know the difference,” he added.

Mather said county officials did the best they could to notify residents.

“I was first notified at 2:53 p.m.,” Mather said. “We posted it on our Facebook page and on the Lyon County website. The city of Marshall also posted on their Facebook and website. We also physically called all the key players, such as ambulance, fire department, nursing homes and such. We asked people to call either 537-7000 or 537-7666 instead of 911.”

The Marshall Independent also posted on its Facebook page.

Mather encourages community members to sign up for Lyon County Code Red notifications that will alert them to possible threats and hazards by way of texts, phone calls and/or Internet.