Law enforcement leaders said this wasn’t the first time they’d dealt with an outage related to Frontier Communications and they hoped something would be done.
PHOENIX — Saturday started a day without 911 calling services in Navajo and Apache counties in Arizona.
Two rural counties in the northeastern part of the state were without service after a Navajo County sheriff told 12 News that someone shot a fiber line in a remote part of the county.
fiber line shot
On Saturday, Navajo County Sheriff David Claus said Frontier Communications found a fiber line outside of Woodruff, Arizona.
“They can see shotgun patterns,” Clouse said.
Frontier Communications is a utility service provider for telephone and Internet thinking in some rural areas of Arizona.
“The downside is that when a fiber optic line breaks, it not only disrupts the public safety line, but it also disrupts communities in Apache County and Navajo County,” Clouse said.
The Navajo County Sheriff’s Office is investigating who shot the line and whether it was done with malicious intent.
No suspects have been identified so far, Clouse said.and the police ask for tips investigating.
not the first time
Even in rural Arizona, there are no 911 calls.
“I’m not getting any calls. All of a sudden it’s eerily quiet,” said St. John’s Police Chief Lance Spivey.
This is something Spivey says he’s seen several times during his roughly five years as chief.
“It’s a tragedy that people have to go through this,” Spivey said.
Both Spivey and Clouse say the problem started on Saturday. Person-to-person calls, Internet and other services were affected by the 911 call.
Spivey said things appeared to be back on track as of Monday afternoon.
Frontier Communications disputes that the 911 service was not used over the weekend, claiming it was only available for one hour on Sunday.
While things were deteriorating, Spivey said St. John’s public safety had to take the radio home in hopes of hearing incoming calls to answer.
In a letter to the Arizona Corporation Commission, Spivey said people were unable to call 911 and the man died on the way to the hospital.
“If this had worked, people wouldn’t have gone through the hospital to get treatment. Someone could have been alive,” Spivey said.
In the letter, Spivey also mentioned an injured girl at her home in St. John’s.
Breonna Ellington said her 5-year-old daughter Kena slipped and injured herself while playing with her sister on Sunday afternoon.
“Of course, every parent’s worst sound is like the attached screen,” Ellington said.
Ellington said her husband was a first responder and knew he couldn’t get through, so he took Kena to the White Mountain Regional Medical Center in Springerville, Arizona. It takes about 30 minutes by car to get there.
However, Ellington said he fears the hospital won’t be able to accept the severity of Kena’s injuries.
“They did everything they could. They emailed, they called, they tried all these things to try and get a bigger hospital, one on Shaw Row, but they I couldn’t even reach out to Phoenix Children and say, ‘Hey, can I send these people to you?'” Ellington said. Told.
Eventually, Ellington said Kena’s bleeding slowed and the hospital was able to get the Phoenix Children.
The family then drove to the Valley to care for Kena. Ellington said she was playful and reverted to her 5-year-old self.
Missing calls and inability for residents to call in an emergency is nothing new.
“Frontier knew this tipping point could cripple or potentially harm people in two counties and all first responders. We haven’t done anything other than upgrade the fiber, there’s no redundancy,” Spivey said.
Ellington said the situation was frustrating and scary.
“I just hope things get resolved. And this doesn’t have to be a parent’s story.” In addition to children’s health, when it comes to safety, parents often ask, ‘How do I call the hospital?
ordered to change
Earlier this year, the Arizona Corporation Commission discovered a major outage lasting hours or days in some of the states Frontier Communications serves.
The commission decided that Frontier Communications should come up with a plan to improve its system to stop the blackout.
A spokesperson for the Arizona Corporation Commission told 12 News that they are investigating this latest outage, but could not comment further on whether Frontier Communications is complying with mandates to improve the system. .
“There’s always a ‘plan a’ at the frontier, and the ‘plan a’ fails about every six months,” says Clouse. “And we have him scrambled for three days, and I don’t think they understand the impact that has on a small town like this.”
Law enforcement leaders want action now.
“With the fact that they have multiple wires, I hope they actually give us what we’re paying for,” Clouse said.
Sheriffs and Chiefs want to be able to help their communities.
“They don’t have to worry about 911 and phone lines working,” says Spivey.
In response to 12 news questions about outages and past outages, Frontier Communications said in an email:
“Frontier is offering up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of individuals who disrupted Frontier-owned communications lines in Navajo County, Arizona last weekend, crippling communities. To provide St. John with this critical infrastructure, I suggested that we talk with the Arizona State Board of Companies, the Arizona Department of Management, and industry about network redundancy, which could prevent weather and disruptions, as in this example. due to actions, etc.
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