As of 4:00pm Tuesday, November 12th, Curry County released information stating that the county was experiencing problems with their phone system and that most departments could not receive incoming calls. The Sheriff’s Office was one such department impacted by the phone issue.
The team working on the problem worked through the day and into the night in hopes of repairing the phone system and that they were expecting the issues to carry over into Wednesday due to some severe obstacles they have encountered.
On Wednesday Curry County reported that their phone systems are working, except for the voicemail capabilities.
If you have been trying or will be trying to reach the county, keep calling until someone picks up. Voicemails cannot be retrieved and will not be answered. Coos Curry Electric, who provides IT services to the county, and the phone vendor, DGI, have worked through the night and have made progress on the phone system repairs, albeit slow going due to conversion differences between the antiquated systems.
The age of the county phone system coupled with the fact that the county is down to only one working phone server greatly added to the difficulty of fixing the issue quickly.
Currently the county has two plans on how to repair the system and they are working through plan 1 right now. Until this system is repaired, some extensions will not be working, staff will not be able to retrieve voice messages, and callers will not be able to leave messages.
Due to the phone emergency, the Board will discuss a new phone system at their meeting on Wednesday, November 20th. This past month the Board discussed a phone upgrade, and agreed to budget for the new upgrade in the coming budget. Due to the phone situation, the Board will be discussing moving the project forward this current fiscal year. If approved, the new system is expected to take three months for installation and conversion.
