An equipment failure at a CenturyLink facility Thursday evening in Colorado caused local and nationwide outages to 9-1-1 dispatch centers, long distance telephone service and internet connections. CenturyLink reported the outage about 8:18 p.m. Thursday, and Beau Renfro, Wahkiakum County Emergency Services (EMS) soon joined a nationwide telephone conference call that continued none stop into Friday morning. When it became clear the outage would last some time, EMS personnel sent text and reverse 9-1-1 telephone messages to county residents to notify people of the outage and identify other phone numbers with which people could report problems and calls for emergency service. The 9-1-1 service was restored about 3:30 a.m. Because problems were continuing in the CenturyLink network, Wahkiakum EMS officials hesitated to announce the return to service until the entire network was restored in Washington Friday morning. Apparently no calls for service came to the Cathlamet dispatch center during the outage.