AT&T may have put the safety of its Salt Lake City customers at risk by diverting cell phone 911 calls intended for local authorities to a 911 call center in Seattle, Washington hundreds of miles away.

Starting last Thursday, AT&T customers who tried to report an emergency by dialing 911 ended up speaking with confused operators in Seattle who couldn’t understand why customers were calling them about problems several states away.  Company officials took until the following day to fix the problem, and it took calls from a local television station to alert local officials and the company that a serious problem existed with the area’s 911 system.

Although the problem has now been fixed, company officials have not released an explanation about what caused the glitch.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KSL Salt Lake City ATT mysteriously directing Salt Lake 911 calls to Seattle 3-25-10.flv[/flv]

KSL-TV broke the story about the 911 diversion, interviewing one customer whose local Salt Lake City cell phone mysteriously reported his caller ID as in Seattle, Washington.  Part two of this report is from the following day, after service was restored. (4 minutes)