Can you hear me now? Not if you’re a Port Authority cop assigned to the Outerbridge Crossing.
PAPD cops assigned to the span that connects Staten Island with New Jersey have been without radio use for more than six hours — making it impossible to communicate with their fellow officers from their patrol cars or with walkie-talkies, sources told The Post.
The stunning security glitch began around 1 p.m.
The cops are unable to resort to using their cell phones as a temporary back up because the PAPD patrol guide forbids them from using them while on duty, sources said.
As a result, a sergeant, lieutenant and three cops who normally patrol the Outerbridge are holed up inside an administration building near the toll house, awaiting the arrival of a PA radio repairman.
Cops assigned elsewhere within the Staten Island bridge command — including those who patrol the Goethals and Bayonne Bridges — are not affected by the outage, sources said.
“They can communicate among themselves and with each other, but they can’t hear us and we can’t hear them,” explained one Outerbridge police source.
“We don’t know if it’s a transponder on a roof that’s been knocked out or something else, but the bottom line is that he radios are dead,” the source added.
Police sources were shocked at the failure of PA brass to deploy reinforcements to the 83-year-old span.
“Right now, if someone stuck a gun into the face of a toll collector and said, ‘Give me the money!’ we wouldn’t be able to communicate with each other to handle a robbery in progress.
“And if a car became disabled during rush hour, we can’t communicate with each other to move it or get the people here who can transport it,” the source added.
A PA spokesman said cops have switched to another channel on their radios and are able to communicate with a dispatcher but not with each other. As soon as the PA was notified, they doubled up on patrols so that no officer is working alone, the spokesman said, while adding that the cause of the problem was still under investigation.