News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
According to Hollis Lasley, Regional Manager for US West, at about 4:30 p.m. a dump truck operated by the State of Oregon involved in repaving highway 126 between Sisters and Redmond broke the cable suspended 17 and-a-half feet above the ground near Buckhorn Lane.
Lasley said that 2,350 accounts in Sisters were affected and 1,500 in the Camp Sherman/Black Butte exchange.
Lasley said the good news was that an aerial cable is much easier to repair quickly. Underground cable requires a trench that must be dug and can limit work room.
The break that isolated the Sisters/Camp Sherman exchange took about two hours to repair temporarily, according to Lasley. The next day, US West made permanent repairs.
On a fiber optic cable, permanent repair involves melting the two ends of the glass cable back together, he said. There is no loss of signal quality.
During the outage, calls could be made within the local exchange, but calls from elsewhere could not reach the area and no calls from within the exchange could get out, including calls to 911 Emergency Dispatch in Bend.
Lasley said there was no indication that anyone tried to reach 911 during the outage.
In an emergency during business hours, local residents could call the local number for the Sisters Police who then could communicate by radio, Lasley said.
Night time dispatch for Sisters Police is handled through the 911 system and local residents would only reach a recording at Sisters Police Department.
Reader Comments(0)