Extra police hit the streets, fire engines perched on hilltops
to watch for smoke, banks shut their doors, business was stifled at
major retailers, and a Morgan Hill pizza parlor expected to make a
lot fewer deliveries Thursday when a telecommunications rupture cut
off cell phone, land line and Internet services for tens of
thousands of South County residents.
Extra police hit the streets, fire engines perched on hilltops to watch for smoke, banks shut their doors, business was stifled at major retailers, and a Morgan Hill pizza parlor expected to make a lot fewer deliveries Thursday when a telecommunications rupture cut off cell phone, land line and Internet services for tens of thousands of South County residents.
Severed AT&T-owned fiber optic cables in San Jose cut off normal lines of communication starting about 2 a.m. Thursday, and a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspected vandal was announced by the phone company in the afternoon.
As a precaution, local public safety agencies altered their routine and deployed additional resources, as residents couldn’t call 911, though police reported no major emergencies unrelated to the lack of phones early in the day.
Morgan Hill police and city officials said their phones were working intermittently in the first few hours of the communications breakdown, but not dependably enough to rely on their normal staff levels if a serious emergency happened.
Chief Bruce Cumming said his officers couldn’t even use the land line to contact the dispatch center.
“We can’t call out of Morgan Hill,” Cumming said about 9:30 a.m. “We have to rely on microwave transmissions and our radios. The radio system is working fine.”
He added he placed extra officers on the streets, including detectives and school resource officers, stationed at well-traveled intersections and shopping centers where people could easily wave them down if necessary.
The police station activated its Emergency Operations Center shortly after noticing the telecommunications were down about 2 a.m., when up to four fiber optic lines were intentionally cut near the intersection of Monterey Highway and Blossom Hill Road in south San Jose, according to news and police reports.
The cutting of the cable caused service problems across Santa Clara, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties, according to city staff and AT&T.
While some local calls were working as of mid-morning, cell phone calls and text messages on the Verizon, Nextel and Sprint networks were not workingas of 5 p. m. and local Internet services were still out. Some calls were working on AT&T and its data plan was up. About 52,000 phone and voice internet customers went without service Thursday.
The Morgan Hill EOC gathered police officers, chiefs from the Santa Clara County Fire Department and CalFire, and representatives from Morgan Hill public works and other city departments by about 5 a.m. The EOC headquarters is at the MH police station on Vineyard Boulevard.
“We’re bringing the various key people together so they can coordinate their efforts,” Commander David Swing said, adding he was unaware of any past event causing similar strain on the gamut of public safety and community service agencies.
The city used its local cable channel to notify local Charter Cable customers of the lack of 911 communications, and listed the locations they could seek emergency assistance.
Swing explained the strategy was to establish as many communication points as possible throughout the city for citizens who might need emergency assistance.
Firefighters were available at fire stations to help citizens whose only way to report an incident was to walk in, and extra fire department staff and engines were situated at vantage points in the hills watching for smoke, according to SCCFD Battalion Chief Ron Vega. The Morgan Hill Community Emergency Response Team, a corps of volunteers trained in basic police and medical response, was scattered around town as well.
Hours after the communications systems went down, the local 911 line was routed through the Santa Clara County communications center. Police urged the few whose phone lines were still working to call the Morgan Hill dispatch line instead of 911.
Officer Carson Thomas, who was stationed at Morgan Hill City Hall, said he hadn’t heard of any criminal incidents or emergencies before noon, but that’s usually the slowest time of the day anyway.
“Our biggest concern is that people won’t know what to do (without their phones), so we’re trying to make ourselves as visible as we can,” Carson said.
Detective Greg Dini said he hoped the communications rupture would be fixed before the afternoon, which is typically when the department gets busier with more calls for criminal incidents.
At press time, officials expected the systems to be back to normal by 6 p.m. Thursday.
Some customers at Target at Cochrane Commons turned around as soon as they walked in and were told by an employee that the store couldn’t accept credit cards or checks due to the lack of telecommunications systems.
Two of those customers were Roger and Marilyn Beaulieu of Morgan Hill, who couldn’t finish any of the errands they attempted Thursday. “This is our fourth strike,” said Roger Beaulieu after being told Target couldn’t process a returned item as soon as he and his wife entered. Earlier that morning, the Beaulieus were unable to pay for services at the doctor’s office in Gilroy, the Morgan Hill Post Office and an insurance company.
Target manager Francisco Huerta said even the store’s hand-held PDA network, which employees use to scan and look for merchandise, was down. He said all other Target stores in Santa Cruz, Monterey and Santa Clara counties were also unable to process most credit cards and checks.
And it was hard to find cash, as most banks in Morgan Hill were closed and automatic cash machines, which rely on telecommunications systems to locate accounts, were not working.
At Saint Louise Regional Hospital in northeast Gilroy, graveyard employees rallied by driving to physicians’ homes to keep them informed and give some two-way radios, which connected doctors with emergency room staff, helicopters and ambulances, according to House Supervisor Craig Petersman.
Also in Gilroy, long lines formed at South Valley National Bank on First Street as security concerns heightened during the outage, said bank Manager Kurt Michielssen. Because of problems with the security system and ATMs not being operational, bank employees were only letting only one or two people into the bank at a time.
And back in Morgan Hill, employees at My Pizza on Main Avenue were visibly distraught when they found out from the Times that the phones were down. Matt Mueting said almost all the restaurant’s pizza orders are typically taken over the phone.
“It’s going to be a slow day,” Mueting said.
