ralphs@sumax.seattleu.edu (Ralph Sims) (01/21/91)
An unknown number of US West subscribers were silenced in rural Mason County Washington today when all of a sudden their phones were dead. No dial, no nothing. Nothing coming in. Nothing going out. It is estimated a hundred subscribers were affected. Affected were not only residential subscribers, but a portion of a fire department's emergency dispatch center. Mason County does not have E-911, relying on the basic package. Our fire department maintains seven-digit emergency lines in addition to a ring-down cicruit to and from the 911 'center' (called a 4PLNT circuit). In all, seven circuits were lost, including one entire community's emergency line access, as we are the 911 Public Service Answering Point (PSAP) for them. All of the affected lines came into the fire department dispatch center via 'SLICK 96' (perhaps SLCC-96) equipment. This equipment is serviced by 600' of overhead secondary power lines and then about 300' of underground. Total length of downtime was about three hours. The cause? A squirrel had climbed the a power pole and shorted the power company's transformer, killing the electric feed to US West's equipment. Not much of the animal was left. The power outage had remained un-detected as US West was the only customer fed by that transformer. Batteries in the 'slick' had kept the unit operational until they died. It is not known when the squirrel was toasted. halcyon!ralphs@sumax.seattleu.edu (Ralph Sims) ralphs@halcyon.uucp or ralphs@halcyon.wa.com The 23:00 News - Seattle, WA USA +1 206 292.9048 (a Waffle Iron)