Phones, Internet out across Humboldt County after cable cut

Phone and Internet service went dead Wednesday across a vast swath of Humboldt County after a Caltrans crew preparing for an impending storm unintentionally cut a fiber optic cable with a backhoe, officials said.

State Sen. Mike McGuire said that an estimated 90,000 cell phone, landline and Internet connections were lost sometime after 10:30 a.m., and the majority continued to be out Wednesday night. Most were AT&T customers but some U.S. Cellular customers were affected in Humboldt and Lake counties.

Closest to the cut cable, the 3,250-person city of Rio Dell –- including its residents and police department -- had no phone or Internet service at all, McGuire said Wednesday night. But police and volunteers with the city’s fire department were out in force at the ready, he said.

A Caltrans representative said in a Facebook post that local AT&T repair crews estimated service would be restored by 12 p.m. Thursday.

From the start of the outage, most law enforcement agencies could still get 911 calls, although emergency calls were initially disrupted in McKinleyville until technicians re-routed calls through Eureka, McGuire said.

McGuire, D-Healdsburg, whose district covers Coastal northern California from the Oregon border to Marin County, said he is concerned because of the pending storm.

“Emergency responders do not know how many landlines versus cell phones versus Internet connections are out,” McGuire said. “There is a redundant fiber line over Highway 36, and we’ve asked them (AT&T) to light up that line to make sure there’s consistency.”

The outages disrupted nearly any transaction that involved a phone line or Internet connection, from financial transactions in Arcata to final exams at College of the Redwoods in Eureka. The service interruption could potentially impact Humboldt County employees because payday is Thursday, McGuire said.

“We are dependent on these data lines to be able to run our lives, to process debit and credit cards, communicate with loved ones and emergency responders, access medical records,” McGuire said.

A Caltrans representative posted on the agency’s District 1 Facebook page that the line was cut in a culvert near Highway 101 between Fortuna and Rio Dell. A maintenance crew had been clearing the culvert with a backhoe to prepare for the storm.

“A few inches of dirt and debris are removed from the area in front of the culvert to improve drainage,” said the Caltrans statement. “This isn’t the first time this crew has cleared this culvert in this manner. There was no indication that utilities existed under the ground near the culvert.”

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.