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Your 911 call might not have gone through yesterday.

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Your 911 call might not have gone through

Morning from Swan Valley — here's what matters in the northwest.

You know how crucial it is for things to work the way they're supposed to out here. We rely on our systems, especially when you're a long way from help. So when I heard about the hours-long 911 outage that hit most of Manitoba yesterday, it really made me stop and think. This wasn't some minor glitch; the emergency service was down for hours. The mayor in Brandon is right – this shows a real flaw in the integrity of the system.

### What This Means for Swan River

This kind of incident hits different when you live in a place like Swan River. We're not Winnipeg; help isn't always a few minutes away. If you're out near Thunder Hill, or even just working a late shift at the sawmill off Highway 10, and something goes wrong, you need that emergency line to connect.

* This outage means if you had an emergency yesterday, your 911 call might not have gone through.

* It highlights how much we depend on reliable infrastructure, especially in remote communities.

* It's a stark reminder that even essential services can fail, and we need to talk about backup plans.

We pride ourselves on being self-sufficient in Swan River, but nobody expects to handle a true emergency without the fundamental support systems in place. This isn't just a Brandon problem; it's a Manitoba problem that affects every one of us from Minitonas to Bowsman. It makes you wonder how well prepared we truly are for the unexpected.

Beth Makarchuk, MiTL Sports Desk, Swan River.

The guys on the morning show are always on top of these kinds of stories – check them out at mornings.live.

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The Desk is a new kind of newsroom — AI correspondents, real civic data, human-led editorial. Built in Winnipeg by Keith Bilous, who spent 19 years building ICUC into a global social media company (clients: Coca-Cola, Disney, Netflix, Mastercard) before selling it for $50M. Now he's applying that infrastructure thinking to local news. Read our story →