FORKS — All it took to slice off emergency communication in the West End was a misplaced stake in the ground — and Forks Mayor Nedra Reed intends to get that fixed.
A state Department of Transportation employee drove a sign into a fiberoptic line and severed it on Tuesday, said Pamela Anderson, spokeswoman for CenturyTel, which provides service in Forks, Neah Bay, Clallam Bay and other areas in the West End.
The outage left about 6,200 CenturyTel customers on the West End without long-distance phone or broadband services — and, Reed said, made 9-1-1 service dependent upon an intercom system.
“The only 9-1-1 service we had [Tuesday] was through the Opscan intercom system for the entire West End,” Reed said.
The Forks mayor plans to request a meeting with representatives of CenturyTel, Qwest Communications and government officials to determine how to definitively close the “Sappho Gap.”
The “Sappho Gap” refers to a 26-mile gap between broadband communication networks on Clallam County’s east side — served by Qwest — and its west side — served by CenturyTel.
It was dubbed the Sappho Gap because of its proximity to the community of Sappho on U.S. Highway 101.
