A construction dig that cut a CenturyLink fiber optics line near Casselton on Monday disrupted phone and rerouted 911 service in Jamestown and Valley City.
“There was a large impact to both cities and we are not sure of the exact number impacted at this time,”said Rachel Woodman, CenturyLink public relations and market development manager for North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska.
The outage occurred at approximately 1:13 p.m. when workers with a third party contractor involved in a construction project were trenching and cut through the fiber communications line about 6.3 miles west of Casselton, Woodman said. The company that was involved in the incident was not named, but Woodman said that these accidents are avoidable by calling 811 prior to digging.
Crews located the cut and started repairs just after 8:30 p.m., Woodman said. The extent of the outage was unknown as CenturyLink was determining the severity of the break.
“At this time the total impact is still being investigated,” Woodman said Monday evening.
The 911 line itself belongs to CenturyLink, and the priority was to restore 911 service and then phone and Internet service to customers as quickly as possible, she said.
“Voice service and long distance is impacted and 911 was rerouted,” Woodman said.
Jerry Bergquist, Stutsman County emergency manager and 911 coordinator, said that after conducting in-house phone testing, it appeared that CenturyLink customers could talk to CenturyLink customers, and Dakota Central Telecommunications customers could talk to other Daktel customers, as long as the calls did not require a long distance connection.
“But CenturyLink customers cannot talk to Daktel customers and vice versa,” Bergquist said.
This is not the first time a 911 outage has occurred, Bergquist said. As soon as it happened Monday, he reported it and the local police dispatch rerouted incoming 911 calls to the North Dakota State Radio communications system, which is run by North Dakota Highway Patrol dispatch and can provide support for various law enforcement, fire and ambulance entities around the state.
“The caller who dials 911 would never know the difference,” Bergquist said.
The difference on Monday, he said, was that caller information was relayed back to first responders from State Radio communications system. It works, but there is a delay.