A social media post by the Osage County Sheriff’s Office announced that 911 emergency call services in the county are again in working order as of 2:05 a.m. today, July 16, 2019.

The sheriff’s office reported on social media about 6:30 p.m. yesterday that 911 and long distance calls for Osage County were not working. The post said the sheriff’s office could only connect on calls to and from Lyndon numbers at the time, and reported that Centurylink, a local phone service provider, was working on the problem.

In that post, the sheriff’s office advised that anyone with an emergency or who needed to reach dispatch should call 785-224-1212 or 785-817-1659, and said those numbers were only active during the times the phone problem was occurring. The sheriff’s office asked its Facebook followers to pass on information about the emergency call services outage to family and friends who did not use the social media platform.

This afternoon, Osage County Sheriff Laurie Dunn said she still did not know the reason for the outage of the county’s 911 system. She confirmed that such outages are a danger to the public and noted they have happened before with the current phone system, sometimes caused by cut phone lines.

“Normally it’s the regular phone lines, but not this time,” Dunn said in a text message today.

Dunn said she was told the outage affected several counties.

“I hope for answers tomorrow,” Dunn said, noting she was to receive an update on the problem from Centurylink on Wednesday.

See related story: Sheriff reports Centurylink problems affecting Osage County emergency dispatch, 911 calls