A problem with Verizon phone connections on Saturday forced agencies that handle emergencies in Erie County to take some extra steps to make the 9-1-1 system work.

There is a potential for delayed responses, but “calls are being handled,” the county’s commissioner of Central Police Services said Saturday night.

“We are set up to deal with situations like this,” said Commissioner John A. Glascott. “There have been no 9-1-1 calls dropped or missed. The calls are being handled.”

When asked if responses to 9-1-1 calls could be delayed somewhat by the Verizon problems, Glascott said, “Potentially,” adding that those delays would likely be minimal.

“I do not see this is a major public safety concern,” Glascott said. “But there is a network outage with Verizon. We do need this fixed, and I do want some answers from Verizon.”

A Verizon spokesman told The Buffalo News late Saturday night that the communications company has teams of technicians trying to isolate the problem and fix it.

“It could be fixed an hour from now, six hours from now, or later. We don’t know yet,” said the Verizon spokesman, John Bonomo. “The most important thing is that, when a caller calls 9-1-1, they get an answer. To our knowledge, every call is being answered.”

Extra personnel from the Sheriff’s Office were working on the problem Saturday night, authorities said.

According to Glascott, all county 9-1-1 calls are being routed to a central office run by the county in downtown Buffalo.

“Usually, if we get a call downtown about something happening in Cheektowaga, our county dispatcher can press a couple of buttons to send the call to the Cheektowaga police. Because of this problem, our dispatcher would have to take down the information, and then call the Cheektowaga police on another line and pass on the information,” Glascott said.

At least two police departments – the towns of Lancaster and Tonawanda – were having trouble with their non-emergency phones late Saturday.