7/14/00 Telephones down Rayhan Daudani Thousands of people in the foothills are without phone service tonight. Their phone lines were accidentally cut during the re-construction of Foothills Boulevard. We spoke with Peggy Mulloy at Qwest Communications. She says service could be back up as soon as noon tomorrow. However the sheriffs department says it may take until noon on Saturday. Qwest has representatives working on the lines out here. But they say the contractors must fix a sewer line first. In the meantime, the greatest concern is what would happen in an emergency. The Yuma County Sheriffs office estimates up to 5-thousand customers are affected by the outage. And that means hundreds of households with no way to call 9-1-1. Luckily theres a contingency plan. The county is using the old city-of Yuma Radio System.

In case of emergency residents should head to the YCSO substation on Foothills Boulevard or to the Rural Metro station on Fortuna Road. Both stations will be open 24-hours. In the meantime, Sheriffs are also increasing patrols in the foothills. That way they can head-off any unexpected problems. Of course, you can always use your cell phone. The main sheriff and Rural Metro offices are still fielding emergency calls

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), July 14, 2000

Answers

URL http://www.msnbc.com/local/KYMA/34995.asp

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), July 14, 2000.