UPDATE: 8:55 a.m., July 3, 2014 from Jan Kampbell, CenturyLink —
As of 9:00 pm last night, local calling and 911 services were restored, and as of 11:25 pm, long distance dialing was restored throughout the Islands. Technicians continue to monitor the situation.
CenturyLink places a priority on customer safety and restoring service. We apologize for any inconvenience this has created for our customers.
UPDATE: 9:32 p.m. July 2, 2014, from Jan Kampbell, CenturyLink —
As of 9:00 pm, local calling and 911 services have been restored throughout the Islands. Technicians continue to work on full restoration and will continue to work around the clock as necessary. Estimated time of full restoral is 12:00 am., July 3.
ORIGINAL STORY: 2:15 p.m. July 2 from San Juan County Sheriff’s Office —
911 and phone lines appear to be out at this time. Calling within island appears to be fine but island to island is out. More to follow.
IF YOU REQUIRE IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE FOR A
FIRE, POLICE, OR MEDICAL EMERGENCY,
CALL ORCAS FIRE DEPARTMENT AT 376-2331
You can also email 911@sanjuanco.com
Orcas Fire and Rescue recommends you check on your neighbors to make sure they have this information.
OIFR and Orcas Issues will do our best to keep you updated as this seemingly familiar story unfolds.
UPDATE: 5:46 p.m. July 2 from Jan Kampbell, CenturyLink —
Local CenturyLink technicians continue with restoration efforts. Additional CenturyLink fiber splicers are expected on site at 5:45 pm. We are looking at an estimated time of restoral around 12:00 am.
UPDATE: 3:39 p.m. July 2 from Stan Matthews, San Juan County —
A phone cable cut on San Juan Island has knocked San Juan County’s 911 emergency phone service off line outside of San Juan Island at approximately 1:45 p.m. today.
Individuals needing emergency response on Orcas should try 911 first. If the call does not go through, call Orcas Fire at: 376-2331.
Residents of Lopez Island should call their local fire station at: 468-2991. 911 service is still operational on most of San Juan Island.
CenturyTel is reported working to resolve the problem.
UPDATE: 3:38 p.m. July 2 from Jan Kampbell, CenturyLink —
A fiber cable on San Juan Island has been cut by an outside contractor, which is affecting CenturyLink services throughout the Islands. 911 services are impacted. It is CenturyLink’s priority to restore 911 services as soon as possible, as customer safety is our priority. In the event of an emergency, residents on San Juan Island should go to the Friday Harbor Fire Department at 1011 Mullis St, Friday Harbor, residents on Lopez Island are instructed to go to the Lopez Fire Station at 2228 Fisherman Bay Rd in Lopez Village. Residents on Orcas Island should go to the Orcas Island Fire District at the fire station located at 45 Lavender Lane, Eastsound.
CenturyLink technicians are on site working to repair residential and business services impacted by the fiber cut. They will continue to work around the clock if necessary to restore services. We apologize for any inconvenience this has created for our customers.
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Time for our elected representatives to eject Centurylink from the county and have someone run the phone system and data networks that can spell “redundancy”.
Martin
Interesting that (after all Century Link has been thru in recent months) their idiot Public Relations people tell us that if we have an emergency we should “go to” the fire station (5, 10 or 15 or perhaps 20 miles away), rather than email 911@sanjuanco.com. Any responsible phone company would have figured that out in advance, and put it into their original alert. Instead, if it hadn’t been for the Sheriff’s office, which DOES do emergency planning, we still would not know that we had that option. It would be fair for the county officials to conclude that Century Tel does not know the basics about emergency planning, and for that reason they should lose their franchise!
Says Centurylink: “We apologize for any inconvenience.”
…??
Funny, all the times I’ve called them complaining of an outage they tell me that they have no record of an issue and it must be my own personal error…!
The lack of a redundancy plan continues to place island residents at jeopardy. Lack of 911 is only part of the problem – as big one. Lack of ability to call off island also means that personal emergency call pendants do not work, as those go through an off island call center. I urge island residents to contact Century Link and demand a redundancy plan. Also, support Senator Ranker’s “Ranker Bill” which would require Life Alert companies to release names of individuals who rely on that service in the event of outages.
Huge thanks to OIFR, all the staff and so many of their volunteers. A large group of Camp Orkila counselors even volunteered! All these folks took on the job of notifying as many island residents as possible about the outage and the options available in as many creative ways as could be thought of: leaflets, phone trees and good old knocking on doors. Good job everyone!