NILES — The Niles Police Department experienced a telephone outage to their non-emergency lines at approximately 6:30 p.m. Feb. 1.

AT&T representatives advised that the outage was affecting a portion of south Berrien County. AT&T officials said they did not know at that time what was causing the outage or how long it may last.

This outage affected the non-emergency lines only. 911 lines were not affected and were operational.

Niles IT staff were able to reach an alternative to the AT&T number available to the police department for non-emergency use. Niles residents that subscribe to the city’s text alerts were notified of the outage and the temporary number to call for non-emergency situations. The outage lasted until almost 10 p.m. at which time all phones to the police department were restored. Residents are encouraged to subscribe to the city’s text alert program by texting NILESCITY to 36000 in order to receive texts regarding situations like this, or to be notified about power outages, road closures, boil water alerts, etc.

As of Friday morning, police said they had not been notified by AT&T as to what caused the outage.