The Office of Emergency Services (OES) was activated this morning in Santa Clara County (Northern California) as a result of AT&T phone cables being cut, knocking out major lines in several cities and affecting local emergency service communication. Ham radio operators were activated to assist. Excerpts from some of the email follow.
This is a BIG reason to keep our eyes and ears open, our radio operation and communication skills sharp, and to support the house bill to force HOAs to make "reasonable accommodations" for ham antennas. This could happen anywhere.
73,
Pink Foster, KG6ILA
Member, PIMA County RACES
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [TalkNet] Sabotage suspected in phone outage in Santa Clara, Santa Cruz counties (Northern California)
By Mark Gomez
SJ Mercury News
Posted: 04/09/2009 06:53:25 AM PDT
Police are investigating whether sabotage to an underground fiber optic cable in south San Jose caused a widespread phone service outage in southern Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties this morning that included disruption to 911 emergency phone service, according to law enforcement officials.
John Britton, a spokesman for AT&T, said it appears somebody opened a manhole in South San Jose, climbed down 8 to 10 feet and cut four or five fiber-optic cables.
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12106300?source=most_viewed
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
As of 1415 hrs PDT, per N6CCH
Progress Details:
Crews identified that not all of the cables are ribbonized so work in
manhole continues with ribbonizing and trying to gain slack. Service on
these cables will begin to restore around 5PM EDT, 2PM PDT. Best case ETR for completing splicing of these 3 cables remains at 11PM EDT, 8PM PDT. It has been determined that the most critical services are on the 3 48-fiber cables. The 360-fiber cable previously believed to be partially severed was completely severed and is now spliced.
-- 73 de N6CCH aka Rebar