The Cumberland County Regional Communications Center now has a switch that will automatically route 911 calls to the state communications center in Gray when necessary.

Previously, if the county’s 911 system malfunctioned, a supervisor would call a telephone company service center to have the emergency calls routed to the backup facility.

That system contributed to lengthy delays in switching to the backup system over the past weekend and last month, resulting in up to an hour when 911 calls from 17 Cumberland County communities would not have been answered.

The state’s emergency communications bureau has ordered that 911 calls continue to be answered in Gray until the malfunctions with the county system are completely diagnosed and repaired, and that the transfer to a backup system is rapid and reliable.

The switch giving county dispatchers the ability to direct 911 calls to the Gray barracks was installed last night, said Bill Holmes, director of the county’s emergency communications center.

Technicians believe they have diagnosed the computer problem that was disabling the county system in the first place, but more testing will be done to be certain.