An outage was preventing 9-1-1 calls in Santa Barbara County from reaching public safety dispatchers, according the the county’s Office of Emergency Management, but was resolved as of 4:30 p.m. Tuesday. 

Emergency officials sent out alerts about the outage shortly before 3 p.m. via text message and emails, but offered no explanation regarding the nature of the problem.

“It is unknown when the phone companies will be able to repair this issue,” according to the alert. “9-1-1 dispatch centers are functioning normally.”

People in the county needing emergency services were told to call 805.683.2724 during the outage, according to officials.

“The outage affecting 9-1-1 connections has been resolved. All systems appear to be functioning normally. 9-1-1 should only be used in emergency situations,” the county said at 4:30 p.m. 

Additional information and updates are available online at ReadySBC.org.

— Noozhawk executive editor Tom Bolton can be reached at tbolton@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.