Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
A construction crew in Lebanon accidentally cut a fiber-optic telephone line Saturday morning, leaving Sweet Home unable to contact the outside world, at least by phone.
The outage knocked out all phone service, including cell phone and DSL service, to areas outside Sweet Home, including 911 service.
Bob Campbell, area supervisor for Sweet Home and Brownsville, said a backhoe hit the line while a crew was trenching a 4-foot sewer line in a new subdivision in Lebanon off Crowfoot Street.
CenturyTel discovered the problem immediately through a somewhat fortuitous circumstance.
“We had a technician who was on the phone Saturday morning and lost his connection,” Campbell said. “He immediately recognized the outage as a switch cut, put on his clothes, jumped in his rig and drove a couple of blocks to where he found the problem.”
The employee called for help and workers restored the severed line. The outage occurred about 9:30 a.m. and service was restored by noon, he said.
“We have very, very talented technicians who are able to get this stuff restored PDQ,” Campbell said.
It could have been a dark day for him as he was getting ready for his daughter’s wedding when the call came.
“I was putting my tux on,” he said.
But he made it to the ceremony in time, he added.
Campbell said that cell phone service went out because “cell phones are only good from the cell phone to the nearest tower.” Once the cell call gets to the satellite tower, signals are transfered via land lines, he said.
Since the local 911 service is on the same fiber circuit as regular phone service, it was cut as well.
Sweet Home Police Chief Bob Burford said his department called in a dispatch supervisor “who was trained in handling emergency medical calls” after it became aware that the 911 system was down.
Sweet Home Police Department did not relay any 911 calls to Central Dispatch in Albany or directly to paramedics during the time the system was down.
The department notified KFIR radio station and instructed the staff there to advise listeners to call the local police or fire agencies directly if they needed help.
Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District Battalion Chief Dave Barringer said that his agency got one call during the time the lines were down and it was dispatched through Central Dispatch in Albany.
“Nobody tried to call us directly,” he said. “We didn’t have a problem.”
Burford said that although 911 outages “are not supposed to happen,” people on land lines in Sweet Home could still call within the Sweet Home area.
“Should it have been necessary, our dispatch center was able to take any information and relay it via radio to Albany or we could have dispatched fire or EMS units directly from here,” Burford said.
“It’s just a bummer when these things happen,” said CenturyTel spokeswoman Jacquie Goodwill. “We hate it and the contractors hate it.”