A contractor inadvertently cut a major phone cable in Washougal today, creating a widespread service outage that could last until Saturday afternoon. Up to 900 phone customers are affected.
The incident occurred near the intersection of 17th and E Streets, according to a news release from Frontier Communications, which provides local telephone service to the community. The outage affects customers living between 17th and E streets north to Blair Road, with telephone prefixes 335- and 835-.
A Frontier crew is on the scene making repairs, but it is expected that the last customers won’t have service restored until sometime Saturday afternoon.
Community-wide emergency 911 service is not affected, according to Frontier, but anyone with phone service at their home should use a cell phone to call 911 in an emergency, or drive to a fire station. Likewise, customers with fiber-optic FiOS telephone, internet and cable television services are not impacted by the accident.
Frontier recently bought Washougal’s traditional land-line phone business from Verizon Communications.
