A Verizon spokesperson has confirmed that nonemergency phone lines are working again at numerous police and fire departments following a service disruption. 

The spokesperson says a vendor that Verizon uses for connecting switching equipment experienced a service disruption due to a flooded manhole. After the vendor worked with the power company to turn off the power so the manhole could be accessed safely for repairs, Verizon and the vendor’s teams responded to the site. Service has been fully restored.

Numerous Hudson Valley police and fire departments had sent out alerts that their phone lines were down earlier in the day. 

Municipalities in in Dutchess, Ulster and Orange counties, including Poughkeepsie and Newburgh, had experienced problems with the Verizon landline phones.

Poughkeepsie police posted on their Facebook page that the outage affected all nonemergency, seven digit phones for both the police and fire departments.