STEPHENS COUNTY, Okla_There is some new
information on that fiber optic cable that was accidentally severed west of Lawton Wednesday night, temporarily
disrupting 911 calls in four counties. AT&T officials said an ODOT
contractor working on Highway 7 near Trail
Road accidentally cut the line. 911 calls were re-routed
to surrounding counties for most of the evening while crews repaired the line.
AT&T
officials said everything went back to normal around 10:15. Now they are trying
to figure out more about what happened. They said cuts to fiber optic cables in
the field are common, but cuts of this magnitude are rare. So they want to know
how, why and who. Some of those questions have not been answered yet. But they
do know the quick response from both AT&T and the 911 dispatch centers
helped things run smoothly.
Marlow Police Chief
Jimmy Williams said they found out their 911 system was down when a resident
called in and said she was routed to Ardmore.
That's when he put their backup plan in place.
"We
contacted Ardmore gave them two emergency cell phone lines that we have in
place for purposes such as this. Also we gave them our personal cell phone
numbers just in case anything changed in the mix."
Williams said
this was the first time they've had an outage which took down both 911 and
their administrative lines.
"I could
sit at the terminals and call Stephens and Jefferson county, cause they just
went online with E911. We could call out just fine but if you tried to call in
that's where the problem happened"
AT&T Area Manager
Deano Cox said as soon as the line was cut alarms within the company went off
to alert entities vital to the community, such as hospitals, and their response
went smoothly. He said the company now has to find answers to some important
questions.
"We have
to have an investigation on where was it located and was it located correctly. We
don't know those things yet. Who cut it why they cut it. All those questions
have to be answered before you can try to get restitution summed up."
So, what could be done to prevent a situation like this from happening
again? Cox said crews need to make sure when they are digging or burying cable
that there are no existing fiber cables in their way and that the location will
not affect their work. AT&T said the company should have its investigation
completed within the next three or four days.
We'll keep you updated.
