Nationwide Verizon Outage Hits Southland Customers

LOS ANGELES, CA — A nationwide Verizon network outage affected customers across the Southland Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning.

Customers around the country reported service disruptions ranging from problems making outgoing calls, texting and accessing the internet. According to a Verizon outage map, the regions hardest hit by the outages include the northeast with pockets of outages affecting the Los Angeles, Orange County, Inland Empire and San Diego regions as well as San Francisco, Florida and the Chicago area, according to the website Down Detector. It remains unclear what caused the widespread outage.

Verizon issued a statement addressing the problem.

“Overnight some wireless customers experienced a dialing error when placing calls from their wireless phone to a long-distance landline number,” according to a statement issued by Verizon. “This issue was resolved at 6:30 a.m. ET. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

Police Departments across the nation acknowledged the outage and reminded residents to reserve 9-1-1 for emergencies only.

Because of the time difference, East Coast Verizon customers felt the effects more than customers in California, where the outage occurred in the middle of the night. Verizon customers were quick to let their frustration with the outage be known on social media.

"This is outrageous someone should impeach Verizon!," joked one customer.

"I find it funny that people are complaining they can't make calls.... I thought most people forgot that you could actually talk on the phone with all the texting," added another.