For a brief stretch early this day, calling the Okmulgee County Sheriff’s Office for routine business was a no-go. The office’s standard phone lines went down while a telecom provider worked on the system, but officials say the county’s 911 dispatch never missed a beat. With non-emergency lines offline, staff told residents to use the county contact number instead. The hiccup was short-lived, and officials reported the office phones were back on before mid-morning.
According to FOX23, the Okmulgee County Sheriff’s Office said BTC technicians were working on the office lines while 911 stayed fully operational. During the outage, anyone with non-emergency business was asked to call (918) 756-4311 and select option 3 or 4.
How to reach dispatch
For emergencies, residents should still dial 911, and county emergency dispatch remained reachable throughout the disruption, as listed in the Oklahoma 911 directory. The Okmulgee County directory lists the sheriff’s non-emergency number as 918-756-4311, which officials directed callers to use for routine business. If that line is busy, county pages advise residents to keep an eye on official channels for any further updates.
Who runs the lines and previous outages
The company handling the fix, BTC Broadband, is a regional fiber and phone provider based in Bixby that serves parts of northeast Oklahoma. Okmulgee has dealt with this kind of headache before. In November 2024, storms briefly knocked out police office phone lines and affected tornado-warning sirens while crews worked on repairs, as News On 6 reported. Those earlier outages are a reminder that local systems can get scrambled by both rough weather and routine maintenance work…