News

Backhoe Knocks Out 9-1-1 Service for Thousands in Washington

Alfred Diaz

01/26/2015

Jan. 24--Emergency preparedness officials are now questioning how one backhoe could knock out 911 service for thousand of residents across five counties, disable service for approximately 19,000 cellphones and 4,300 Internet phones, and cripple thousands of businesses for most of Friday afternoon.

"How is it possible that a fiber cable cut can cause that widespread of an issue through multiple counties?" Walla Walla Emergency Services Communication (WESCOM) Director Steve Ruley said. "We were very lucky in this county. Things worked out well. We had a prompt response and things were handled well."

At approximately 2 p.m., a backhoe operator near Lewis Road in Pasco cut through a major fiber optic cable, resulting in numerous communication failures for emergency personnel in Walla Walla, Franklin, Garfield, Columbia and Umatilla counties, CenturyLink spokeswoman Kerry Zimmer said.

The biggest source of problems was loss of cellphone service, but even landlines were said to have experienced some failures, Ruley said.

By 5:30 p.m. Friday, CenturyLink crews had fixed the line, restoring 911 and other services that rely on the fiber optic cable.

"When it is affecting 911, it is all hands on deck, everybody is involved and we are all working to get it repaired," Zimmer said.

During the communications failure, cellphone usage was sporadic. Some users were able to send texts or make phone calls while others lost all services.

Residents and businesses with phones service through the Internet were also unable to call, including several businesses that rely on emergency services the most.

"We get a lot of calls from the nursing home facilities," Ruley said.

In response to the failures, members of the local chapter of the Amateur Radio Emergency Services came forward to provide communications backup.

"They heard what was going on and came down. And we deployed them to the nursing home facilities," Ruley said.

Emergency systems are designed with redundancy, which means there is a backup system should the main system fail. Many of these backup system involve rerouting 911 calls to other nearby dispatch centers.

In Milton-Freewater, Zimmer said dispatchers also lost 911 communications, but were able to reroute incoming 911 calls through Umatilla Emergency Dispatch.

Attempts to reroute Walla Walla's 911 system were unsuccessful.

"This has raised questions about system resiliency and redundancy," Ruley said. "Cellphones are the first things to go in a major disaster because everyone is trying to call in ... I am hoping there will be some more follow up at the state and federal level."

Ruley added that many of the problems could have been lessened had the state's NG-911 system been in place.

NG-911 is the Next Generation 911 system that will allow better communication and rerouting of 911 calls. It is also the system that will one day allow 911 texts to be received.

Ruley said WESCOM already has the equipment in place, but the state is waiting until all counties have installed the NG-911 system to begin using it.

"We got the equipment installed here. We are just waiting for the state to get more direction," Rule said, adding the budget cuts reduce 911 funding in recent years. "This is an important issue and it needs to be seen through to a successful conclusion."

Zimmer was unable to answer if the backhoe operator would be fined for cutting the fiber optic cable. She added the operator had not called 811, which is a free service for locating underground lines before digging.