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H0uleofR®pr®aentatlv®. Phone service disruption affects thousands
Representative
' By BRYAN TUCK problem, but Verizon, the tele- and the rest were back up and ceivable precaution was taken
Myra Crownover Staff wmer phone company that handles running by midnight, by TXU.
District 64 The phrase "between the service in Coppell, learned of "It took four or five hours, "To the best of my knowl-
lines" took on a new meaning the problem almost immedi- which is pretty fast, actually," edge, they followed a]{ the
Room E2.420, CapitOl Extension for several thousand Coppell ately. Burkhardt said. procedures in calling for
Austin, Texas 78701 residents this week. "We knew (about the out- The contractor was locates and locating," he said,
At about 5 p.m. Tuesday, a age) before anybody called," attempting to relocate a tran~ "and I understood they actual-
512.463-0882 Texas Utilities transmission said Jim Burkhardt, mission power pole to allow
Representative contractor working to relocate spokesperson for Verizon. for more construction .on ly hand-dug about four feet to
power lin.es along Sandy Lake "We have a nations] operatio,n Sandy Lake, but it was an make sure that there wasn't
Burr R, Solomons Road accidentally bored into a center that monitors our net- operation of TXU, and an inde-, anything there, but apparently
District 85 fiber optics telephone cable, work 24/7, so we detected the pendent contractor of the the cable was deeper than
severing it and knocking out outage. Then, of course, the Sandy Lake construction pro- that, and they hit it"
Room E1.220, Capitol Extension about 4,000 phone lines in the city called." .ject being worked on by the TXU officials could not be
Austin. Texas 7870~ area. The incident occurred Working quickly, Verizon city. reached for comment.
near the intersection of Sandy technicians were able to splice Nevertheless, Ken Griffin,
512-463-0478 Lake and Trailwood Lane. the fiber back together. About director of engineering for Contact Itaff writer Bryan Tuck
Obviously, residents found 80 percent
Representative it difficult to call about the repaired by i0 p.m. that day far as he knows, every con- owfaxg000Ohotmall,com.
Ken Merchant
District 99