New information on the problem that supposedly kept Tulsa County residents from making 911 calls through most of the holiday. The sheriff's office asked county residents to call two different numbers to speak with a dispatcher. But the city says the system was never down.
Tulsa's 911 center houses operations for both the city and county. The county says a car hit a power pole Monday, severing a fiber optic cable that goes to the call center. They say county residents couldn't call 911. That's why they asked them to call the TPD non-emergency number.
"We have the obligation to notify the citizens of Tulsa County who we serve that the system is down," Tulsa County Sheriff's Sgt. Steve Norton.
But the city says the 911 system was never down. They wouldn't go on camera, but say the county 911 calls were answered by city dispatchers and then handed off to county dispatchers. The city says what was affected was their ability to trace the location of 911 calls. No one could tell us how the glitch affected residents in need of law enforcement.
The county is currently in the process of building its own 911 call center.
"Sometimes when you are combined with another agency, you just simply have policies that the way maybe the center wants it to be done that we don't want it done that way," Sgt. Norton said.
The county believes its new center could help improve emergency service to county residents.
"Multiple lines coming in from different directions, coming out of different sources, so that if one line goes down another line automatically comes on," Sgt. Norton said.
The sheriff's office says the new call center will cost $600,000 and should be open by fall.
