Systems and methods are described herein for handling E911 communications within IMS networks, such as Voice over LTE (VoLTE) networks. In some embodiments, the systems and methods, via various communication nodes, handle or otherwise govern emergency calls within the VoLTE network, by sending an INVITE message from a sender node of the VoLTE network to a recipient node of the VoLTE network, and starting a retry timer at the sender node that is specific to handling E911 calls by the VoLTE network.