Lines are down at Newport Harbor High School

Deirdre Newman

Thank God for cell phones.

That’s the attitude of administrators at Newport Harbor High

School, who might have had to resort to smoke signals from their

castle tower to communicate with the outside world after their phone

and computer access were suddenly cut off this week.

“There hasn’t been a real problem with parents, since most people

here have cell phones,” said Kathy Murphy, administrative assistant

to principal Michael Vossen, who has been entrusted with the school’s

emergency cell phone.

The problem is affecting cable lines under the street between

Irvine Boulevard and Holly Avenue. The surrounding neighborhood is

affected. E-mail is down, too, since Internet access relies on those

cable lines.

Pacific Bell representatives and Assistant Supt. Jaime Castellanos

were unavailable for comment Thursday.

Since Monday was a holiday, school officials didn’t notice the

problem until Tuesday morning when they tried to call out, Murphy

said. The district broadcast a message to school parents Thursday

letting them know about the problem and the emergency phone line. But

most parents don’t seem too worried about it, Murphy said, since she

hasn’t gotten a barrage of calls on her cell phone. No similar

announcement was made to students, Murphy said.

Teacher Jim Crotwell said he is using the reprieve from answering

phone calls and e-mails to catch up on other work.

“It’s given me a lot of time,” Crotwell said. “I’ve gotten a lot

of other stuff done.”

And students don’t seemed fazed by the temporary communication

cutoff, either.

“It’s kind of irritating because we can’t use the Internet here,

but we can always use it at home,” said senior Maryann Pham, 17. “The

[lack of] phones doesn’t really affect me that much.”

The district expects the cable problem to be fixed within the next

two days, according to the message sent out by the district.

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at deirdre.newman@latimes.com.