Putnam 911 Having Issues Receiving Calls

Putnam County’s 911 service is having technical issues receiving calls throughout the department.

Assistant Director Josh Womack said the department’s local cell service provider had a power outage last night causing a loss of service. Womack said anyone in an emergency should still call 911 as those calls will always be answered.

“If something goes down at our center, our calls are automatically rerouted to a neighboring county,” Womack said. “So like, for instance White County and Overton County were able to field our calls and then transfer those back over to us on another phone line so we were still getting the information.”

Womack said it takes a few more minutes to respond to calls that have to be rerouted back into the county. Womack said it is unclear when service will be fully restored but it is a very long process to get everything online again.

“The admin lines, they are coming back online as we speak,” Womack said. “We just made some test calls a few minutes ago and things were working.”

Womack said the outage is affecting other cellular users throughout the county as well. Womack said people can reach out via social media if they are unable to get a hold of anyone on a non-emergency line.

“Social media’s a good way to reach out to at least get a message to say, ‘Hey, this is what’s going. Can you help?'” Womack said. “And then we can work the problem from. But definitely if it’s an emergency, or you think it’s an emergency, call 911.”

Womack said he does not think the issue will get any worse as their provider is working hard to restore the cell service.