911 service affected
A severed fiber line at a construction site left thousands of Verizon Wireless and Time Warner Cable customers in central North Carolina without service on Monday.
For about seven hours, Verizon Wireless customers were without cellular service, including 911, although some customers were still able to send text messages. Time Warner customers lost phone, Internet and cable TV.
“Our fiber was damaged that serves customers in the area as well as a Verizon cell tower,” Time Warner Cable spokesman Scott Pryzwansky said.
At 4:14 p.m., the Moore County Sherriff’s office issued an advisory that Verizon customers in the area could not make 911 calls.
Dominick Nutter, director of the Wake County Emergency Communications Center, said luckily there were no major issues due to the 911 outage. He added that while customers were not able to call 911 from their cellphones, they could still text in an emergency situation. Nutter admits the 911 calling option produces a much faster response time.
“Anytime someone is unable to call by the phone, by all means, text us. But, if you are able to talk, we definitely would prefer you to talk because we can get emergency responders out to you much faster,” he said.
A Verizon spokeswoman said Verizon Wireless’ service was restored by 9:30 p.m. on Monday.
“In conjunction with our engineers, our vendors were able to identify and resolve the issue,” Karen Schulz of Verizon said.
Pryzwansky confirmed “a third party” was responsible for the severed cable. The issue was later tracked down to a construction site in south Raleigh, N.C.
AT&T said a small portion of its customers in the area might have been affected, according to local TV station, WNCN.
