TULSA'S 911 back on-line

Thursday, August 9th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Tulsa's 911 system is back up and operating at full capacity. An early morning equipment failure at the phone company caused some uncertainty about whether 911 calls were going through.

KOTVâ€™s Emory Bryan says no 911 calls went unanswered, but the problems Thursday morning caused some delays in transferring calls to the appropriate operator. When a 911 call comes in, the first person to answer the phone asks if the caller needs police fire or ambulance. They then transfer those calls to the appropriate dispatcher. It was that handoff that was being delayed, and it appears by only a few seconds.

Southwestern Bell spokeswoman Emily MacDonald said the problems stemmed from a hardware issue. ''911 calls are getting through and have been getting through, we are not aware of any 911 calls being lost.''

MacDonald said the company is continuing to explore the cause of the problem.