By Samantha Sinclair and Kevin Hensley
Community Newspapers, Inc.
Dillsboro – Frontier Communications workers cut fiber wiring in Jackson County on the night of Thursday, Feb. 20, preventing Cherokee, Clay and Graham counties from receiving 911 calls.
This was the second time in five months that the telecommunications company caused this issue for the region.
Unlike the last time Frontier cut fiber, the company emailed Graham County Dispatch Director Misty Hembree to let her know there would be a fiber outage overnight as crews completed a “permanent fix” to the fiber facility along U.S. 23.
The two-night job went smoothly the first night, but around 10:45 p.m. Feb. 20, Graham County 911 once again went dark.
During the outage, Emergency Services’ landline number – 479-7985 – was able to receive some calls, but the service was “spotty and intermediate.”
“We could not call out from our phone here,” Hembree explained. “I did place a call from my home – which has a landline – and our center was able to receive both.
“We have a fax line here – that is also a copper line – and I tried it twice. The first time it worked, but when I tried it an hour later, it did not.”
Anyone with a scanner would have heard that 911 service was down and this time, those in need of emergency services were asked to call the back-up line in Swain County, which is 488-2196.
All volunteer fire departments – Stecoah, Santeetlah, Snowbird, Meadow Branch – as well as the Sheriff’s Office and the EMS center itself were also manned during the outage, in case of a walk-up.
The fiber cut also affected cell phone service dependent on Frontier fiber infrastructure.
The repairs were made and communications restored by 2:30 a.m.
Both Clay and Graham counties’ 911 communications were also affected by the fiber cut. Thankfully, Hembree said she didn’t know of any emergencies adversely impacted by the mistake.
“To my knowledge, we didn’t have any calls that weren’t handled, but then again, we didn’t have any phone service,” Hembree said.
The last time a Frontier fiber cut affected 911 communications was overnight on Oct. 17-18, 2019. During that outage, 911 was down for Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Jackson, Macon and Swain counties, as well as the Qualla Boundary.