​A contractor working for OPALCO dug into a CenturyLink fiber cable in Friday Harbor and put 911 and long-distance phone services out of service for about 12 hours on Wednesday, July 2.

Homes, businesses and public agencies in the islands that receive internet service from providers other than CenturyLink were unaffected by the outage. However, CenturyLink is the largest provider of traditional telephone service (the so-called “land-line”) in the San Juans.

Technical staff and management from OPALCO and CenturyLink worked cooperatively to repair the broken fiber. An investigation is underway into the adequacy of the utility location services which are always performed before digging.

Emergency 911 calling was back online as of 9 p.m. and long-distance telephone and internet service was restored about 90 minutes later.

“We apologize to all those inconvenienced,” said Assistant General Manager Foster Hildreth, “and send our gratitude to the team who worked late into the night to make repairs so that the outage didn’t extend into the holiday weekend.”

Island Fire and EMS departments responded to the outage with on-call paramedics, door-to-door public awareness calls and additional stand-by volunteers. In case of a 911 outage, San Juan County residents are encouraged to try the land line number for their island, or go to the fire station for help. It’s also important to check on your neighbors and anyone you know who may be at risk. The OPALCO cares network at island ferry landings is an additional safety net for connection via the Internet.

Thursday’s outage, reminiscent of but much abbreviated in duration compared to the 10-day loss of communications in November, lasted roughly 12 hours.

Technicians continue to monitor the repair of the recently cut cable, according to CenturyLink.