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911 line cut, but service isn't

Progress Energy workers cut fiber optic lines and 10,000 phones go dead. 911 service quickly shifts to Dade City.

By STEVE THOMPSON
Published November 3, 2005

NEW PORT RICHEY - Some who called 911 Wednesday morning likely got a busy signal, others a recording:

"We're sorry, all circuits are temporarily busy. Please try your call again later."

Not what you want to hear in an emergency.

"We probably had a few of those. We don't know," emergency coordinator Jim Johnston said on Wednesday afternoon. But though some might have had to redial, said Johnston, of Pasco County emergency management, he didn't think anyone was left without rescue service.

The troubles Wednesday started about 10 a.m. when Progress Energy workers tore through Verizon fiber optic phone lines. The lines served about 10,000 Verizon customers, including county offices, the courthouse, the 911 call center, and home phones in the New Port Richey area. For residential customers, the outage mostly affected long distance and Internet service, not local calls, Verizon spokesman Bill Kula said.

Incoming 911 calls from all over the county automatically were transferred to Dade City police's 911 call center. And after a short period - minutes or less, Johnston said - lines were tweaked so that Dade City's center could handle the new call volume.

That city's two 911 call takers had to radio addresses and emergency information back to west Pasco dispatchers, with help from police administrators, detectives and others, Dade City police Chief Phil Thompson said.

In about five hours, the call takers handled 167 emergency calls, Thompson said. The city's typical 911 call load: about 300 a month.

"Those young ladies that are working today," he said, "have earned their money."

The source of all the trouble was in a hole about the size of a basketball hoop, a few feet deep, by the sidewalk of Washington Street near U.S. 19 in New Port Richey. It was there, where a lot has been cleared for new townhomes, that workers had been trying to put in a new power pole.

Several black cables spiralled from the hole, as if twisted out by a corkscrew. A few feet from the hole, an orange-painted line stretched across the sidewalk, marking the phone lines. Little orange plastic flags stuck in the grass read: "CAUTION - VERIZON BURIED CABLE - HAND DIG."

Whatever it was that uprooted those cables, it wasn't a hand.

Progress Energy spokeswoman Cherie Jacobs said the utility hired another company to map the site for underground cables. It was not yet clear, she said, whether the map was wrong or workers hadn't followed it.

Mike Baughman, 21, had an emergency in New Port Richey about 12:45 p.m. Wednesday when his mom cut her arm. "I dialed 911 and it worked fine," he said just after the ambulance pulled away. "I got right through to the lady, and she gave me great instructions and everything."

But Dorothy Herbinger had a different experience when a water main was broken by workers installing a fence behind her business, Southwest & Tropical, on State Road 54. As the water gushed, she first tried several numbers in Pasco's utility department, then the Sheriff's Office. She couldn't figure out why she got only busy signals, she said. "You can't be three hours busy."

She finally tried a number at the Sheriff's Office crime prevention unit. Someone there got word to the Water Department over the radio, and workers came out to fix the pipe, which by then had flooded the street and left nearby homes with no running water.

The severed cables also affected phone lines and computer networks linking Pasco courthouse offices with their counterparts in Pinellas. The two counties comprise the Sixth Judicial Circuit.

"We can't communicate with Pasco people," circuit spokesman Ron Stuart said from his Clearwater office. "Everybody I've had to talk to up there I've had to talk to on cell.

Judges and administrative staff couldn't access the circuit's computers to get information or schedule hearings.

"The network just runs over the phone lines," Stuart said. "As soon as the phone lines are reconnected, the network will be reconnected, too."

That happened by 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, when emergency officials reported all the lines were working normally again.

Staff writer Jamal Thalji contributed to this report. Steve Thompson can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6245 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6245. His e-mail address is sthompson@sptimes.com

[Last modified November 3, 2005, 01:07:13]