Sliced Cable Disrupts North County Phones

About 106,000 telephone customers in seven North County communities were left with sporadic phone service Tuesday when a bulldozer severed an underground cable in Sorrento Valley, Pacific Bell officials said.

Service was disrupted about 8:40 a.m. to 25 prefixes when construction workers cut a buried cable near Tansy and Roselle streets, not far from where Interstate 5 and Interstate 805 meet, Pacific Bell spokesman Tom McNaghten said.

Initially, company officials reported that the 911 emergency service had been affected, and used the news media to advise people to use the seven-digit number when calling for police or fire service.

“But fortunately, 911 service was really not affected and all calls (made through 911) were completed,” McNaghten said.

Most service was restored by 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Pacific Bell spokesman Michael Saldivar said, and the cable was expected to be repaired by 4 a.m. today.

The communities affected by the disruption in phone service were Rancho Bernardo, La Costa, Rancho Santa Fe, Del Mar, Encinitas, and portions of Carlsbad and La Jolla.

According to McNaghten, phone service in North County was limited but never completely down.

“Customers were unable to place or receive calls from outside the local exchange, including long-distance calls to and from other areas,” McNaghten said. “But they could make local calls within their own prefix or in a reduced radius.”

It was difficult to gauge the extent of the disruption. Several businesses in the affected areas--from La Jolla to Carlsbad--said their phones were unaffected. For others, the problem lasted only a few minutes.

“We only experienced a short outage here,” said Lillian Rich, a receptionist at Encinitas City Hall. “The phones died for about 10 minutes, but then they came back, and we haven’t had any more problems.”

Deputy City Clerk Patti Barnes said phone service was sporadic at Del Mar City Hall throughout the day.

“It begin at 9:30 a.m., and it’s still kind of going on,” Barnes said. “About half an hour ago, we tried calling San Diego but couldn’t get through.”