Kirtland residents temporarily lose access to 911 system!

[SlGlNT]

KIRTLAND — More than 3,000 Kirtland residents were disconnected from the 911 emergency services line for 90 minutes Friday, a Qwest official said.
The outage occurred after a main fiberline was severed by a contractor digging in the area, Qwest Media Relations Manager Gary Younger said.
Residents affected by the outage, which began around 1 p.m., were unable to make or receive calls outside of the Kirtland area, which meant calls to the 911 center in Farmington couldn't be completed as normally dialed, Younger said.
Service was restored around 2:30 p.m. said Sheri Rogers, a systems analyst for the San Juan County Communications Authority, which operates the 911 system.
Police, fire and medical emergency services still were available, but residents needed to call a local substation directly to have their call answered.
"To my knowledge, we didn't receive any calls for service on that (substation) number during the outage," Rogers said.
There's no way of telling if anyone attempted to dial 911 while that line was unavailable, she said.
The phone system is programed to forward 911 calls to another local number when outages like Friday's occur, but for an unknown reason that back-up didn't work and Qwest was unable to reprogram that forwarding feature to kickstart it.
"We have several back-ups intended to help out when things like this happen. Unfortunately sometimes even back-ups don't work," Rogers said.
With no other options, Qwest turned to media, particularly local radio stations, to tell residents that if they have an emergency, they need to dial an alternate number.
"Making sure that folks are able to have a good solid network is a priority to us, and we have technicians working out there very hard to get this repaired and ensure it doesn't happen again," Younger said.
Construction work is the most common cause of phone network outages, Rogers said, because digging is done without having utility lines marked.
"It's not that difficult to call and have it marked," she said.
Sometimes it's just an accident, Younger said, and no legal action is expected.
Qwest is working to build a secondary line throughout the county that would be a more reliable backup when a main line gets damaged. That line is expected to be completed in March 2008.