Boone, Cole County 911 phone service restored

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Emergency phone lines were restored Wednesday afternoon in Boone and Cole counties after an outage that began in the morning.

Jefferson City Police Lt. Curtis Finke said a little before 4 p.m. Wednesday that service for the city and Cole County had been restored by communication carrier Brightspeed.

"There was no disruption or delay in emergency services provided by the Jefferson City Police Department 911 Center during the outage," Finke said.

Boone County Joint Communications stated in an alert just before 5 p.m. that service had been restored.

Joint Communications issued an alert at about 11:20 a.m. saying that 911 phone service was unavailable. People in need of emergency help are asked to call 311 instead.

Boone County Office of Emergency Management said in a news release the issue is caused by a disruption with Brightspeed. The agency later said that the outage affected 911 centers across Missouri, but was concentrated in Mid-Missouri.

Jefferson City Police Department posted on Facebook on Wednesday morning that 911 calls are still being received but are being rerouted.