An outage along Cox Communications’ phone system has affected parts of Northwest Arkansas and the River Valley, including a couple of law enforcement agencies.
The Lowell Police Department in Northwest Arkansas and the Greenwood Police Department in the River Valley both took to Facebook to let people know that their phone lines weren’t functioning.
Both systems used Cox for their primary phone carrier.
Lowell posted a notice and a temporary phone number on their Facebook page Tuesday morning. An officer at the dispatch center said the number belonged to a city-owned cellphone, which was temporarily serving as their main communication line.
Those needing to reach police in Lowell, for now, can call (479) 225-6608.
Greenwood Police asked on their Facebook page for callers to contact the Sebastian County Sheriff’s dispatchers instead. According to the Facebook post, their system was also on Cox.
Those needing to reach Greenwood Police can contact them through Sebastian County’s dispatch at (479) 783-1051.
Both posts were made shortly before 11 a.m.
Down Detector, a website that monitors communication outages, showed several regions throughout the United States with outages from Cox, including parts of Oklahoma and Kansas, as well as Fayetteville and Fort Smith.
Whitney Yoder, Manager of Public Affairs for Cox, said phone service was restored about 3:30 p.m., and the company apologized to customers for the inconvenience.
