     The Dawes/Sioux County 911 Communications Center at the Chadron police station had no phone service for several hours Monday, forcing dispatchers to rely on a pair of cell phones to handle all business.
Communications Center Director Gale Kittel says the entire Panhandle suffered similar outages, apparently the result of an electrical power issue in the phone office in Sidney.
Kittle released word of the Communications Center outage about 9:00 am, including using the emergency text message system.
Phone service was partially restored before the dispatch center’s 2:00 shift change, but Kittel said in a 4:30 release that glitches had continued.
Testing showed the 911 lines and 911 Location Data were working normally, but while the center’s administrative lines were getting inbound calls, they couldn’t dial out to any cell phones or make long distance calls.
As a result, as of the 4:30 update, the administrative lines could call local landlines, but not make long distance calls – forcing the center to use Chadron Police Department cell phones for outbound calls outside the local exchange.