Centurylink Outage: 911 Service Restored; Hard Work And Cooperation Continue

11/7/13 @ 4:30 p.m. – Eastsound: CenturyLink has restored access to 911 and local inter-island phone services in San Juan County through a bypass created by splicing CenturyLink’s central office connection into OPALCO’s fiber and microwave repeaters. Internet services (DSL) are still down on San Juan Island; county-wide long distance (off island) phone service solutions are in progress.

CenturyLink reports that they continue to investigate the submarine cable failure, but weather conditions have made underwater exploration difficult. OPALCO and CenturyLink are jointly developing plans to meet the community’s needs if the CenturyLink cable repair or replacement will take more than a couple of weeks.

Kudos to the crews in the field working overnight as well as CenturyLink, public safety and OPALCO leadership who are working cooperatively to make best use of resources and coordinate quick action.

To report an outage, please call OPALCO’s outage line: 376-3599. If that doesn’t work, please call the Sheriff’s Dispatch at 378-4151. If it’s a true emergency, please call 911.

Updates will be posted on OPALCO’s website: www.opalco.com, as well as on Facebook (Orcas Power & Light Cooperative) and Twitter (@orcaspower). Please help us to spread the word for the sake of public safety.

OPALCO’s fiber service, through Island Network, delivers data communications capacity to public institutions as well as some commercial entities. There is currently a moratorium on new connections through Island Network as the Co-op goes through a comprehensive infrastructure design and review process.

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