Phones down for 3 days in Mesa Verde

Alicia Robinson

A phone service outage struck an estimated 1,000 homes in the Mesa

Verde area Saturday and lasted through Monday.

A contractor for Southern California Edison power company

accidentally cut a phone cable while drilling a hole near Fairview

Road and West Sunflower Avenue, SBC phone company spokesman Corey

Olfert said.

Southern California Edison spokeswoman Jane Brown was unable to

confirm that a power company crew caused the damage to the phone

cable.

The homes affected are in the “states streets” and Mesa Verde

areas between the San Diego Freeway and Adams Avenue to the north and

south and Harbor Boulevard and the Santa Ana River to the east and

west, though some customers outside those areas may also have lost

service.

Olfert said he wasn’t sure when the cable was damaged, but an SBC

crew began repairing it early Sunday morning and he expected service

to be restored by midnight Monday.

Some residents who lost service said they noticed their phones

were out on Saturday morning, and when they initially called SBC,

they were told they’d have phone service again by Thursday.

The lengthy estimate of repair time puzzled Florida Circle

resident Dave Close.

“If you have a hurricane in some parts of the country, you have

phone service restored in one day,” he said.

New Hampshire Drive residents Cliff Stuewe and Moe Mamo said they

resorted to using cellphones because of the outage, but not everyone

has that luxury.

“We do have some older people here, and missing 911 is not very

good for them,” Stuewe said.

The outage was inconvenient for Mamo, who runs a business out of

his home installing phone and computer cables. He couldn’t get any

business calls or use the Internet while phone service was out, he

said.

Olfert said he isn’t sure why residents may have been told the

cable repairs would take until Thursday. He did not have an estimate

of the cost to fix the damage.

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers business, politics and the environment.

She may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

alicia.robinson@latimes.com.