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Silent phones plague parts of city

Contractors accidentally cut phone cables Tuesday, leaving 2,100 lines dead. Most residents and businesses lack service until Thursday.

By LORRI HELFAND
Published January 20, 2006

LARGO - Michael Foley was talking with his daughter about 11 a.m. Tuesday morning when the phone cut out.

"All of a sudden there was a lot of static and it went blank," Foley said.

He wasn't alone. About 2,100 phone lines in southwest Largo went dead after a subcontractor working on a Florida Department of Transportation project at Walsingham and Indian Rocks roads accidentally cut phone cables.

Some circuits were restored Wednesday, but a chain reaction left most residents and merchants without service until Thursday.

While Verizon crews excavated the site to repair the cables, a drainage culvert collapsed and flooded the hole with water, said Bob Elek, Verizon spokesman.

Crews had to pump the water out and reinforce the hole before repairing the lines.

"Most have service. There may be a straggler or two in there, but by and large we think we've got it licked," Elek said.

Susan Lentz is one of the stragglers. Her line at Susan's Curls & Creations still wasn't working Thursday afternoon.

Callers on the other end of the line hear the phone ring, but the line is dead on her end, Lentz said.

"Nobody can call in for appointments or anything like that," she said. "We don't want our customers getting the wrong idea."

Law enforcement may have been inconvenienced by Tuesday's incident, too.

About the time the cables were cut, the 911 system received about 30 calls in the area with no callers on the line, according to the Largo Police Department.

The police went to the corresponding addresses, but found no emergencies, Capt. Glen Smith said.

Elek was puzzled by the phantom calls.

"I've never seen a situation or heard of a situation with an outage where random 911 calls are made," he said.

During the outage, Foley's wife, Carol, picked up a prescription at Bayside Drugs on Indian Rocks Road.

But she couldn't pay by credit card because the transactions run over phone lines.

The fax lines were also out, and pharmacy technician Stephanie Clark had the store's calls transferred to her personal cell phone.

A few hours after service was restored, Clark waved a stack of 200 bills that still needed to be faxed to insurance companies.

"I'll be caught up by the end of the day," she said.

"We can see the light now."

A few doors down, the phone rang at United Produce.

"Yeah! The phones are ringing," Mike Smiley said before picking it up.

"Smiley's," he said, greeting the caller.

He listened a moment. Then he said, "Honey. We don't accept telemarketing."

Lorri Helfand can be reached at 445-4155 or at lorri@sptimes.com

[Last modified January 20, 2006, 01:47:16]