911 Service Down in Three Counties - Sabotage suspected

Santa Clara County , Santa Cruz County and San Benito County land lines affected; 911 PSAPs impacted.
Major outage affecting most telephone communications, Cell phones may or may not be working.

Update: AM Friday April 12 - Most Problems repaired and service is now restored.

Emergency communications: Anyone facing an emergency situation is instructed to try calling 911 on their phone. If there is no service, try a cell phone, If there is no service, officials are urging people to go to their nearest fire or police department or local hospital or flag down an emergency vehicle. Authorities say that residents with an emergency who can't reach 911 should use a cell phone if possible to call the police dispatch numbers for help. The numbers are: Gilroy (408) 846-0350; Morgan Hill: (408) 779-2101; unincorporated areas: (408) 299-2311

Santa Clara County officials have declared a local emergency: The Santa Clara County Emergency Operations Center has been activated; the Santa Clara County Fire Department has moved more firefighters to south county fire stations; the county sheriff has increasing staffing and patrols; and additional ambulances have been positioned in the area.

Search and rescue crews have set up the following locations to respond to residents reporting locations: Uvas and Watsonville roads, near Gilroy; McKean and Bailey roads, near South San Jose and Morgan Hill; Oak Glen and Edmonson roads, near Morgan Hill; Watsonville Road and Highway 152, near Gilroy; New and Church avenues, near San Martin; and Maple and Foothill avenues, near San Martin.

Gilroy police called in eight officers to help patrol the city, more the doubling the force of seven officers on the streets on a typical day, according to Gillio. He said residents should flag down an officer if they need help.

The city of Gilroy is also sending out emergency notifications on cable channel 17 and 1610 a.m. radio and setting up freeway signs directing people to the cable and radio outlets, according to city spokesman Joe Kline. The city also sent fliers to the schools with information about how to report an emergency. Children were asked to bring the fliers home to their parents.

Update: 04-09-09 PM - Full service is not expected to be restored until about midnight.
Crews are repairing cut wires located underground on Monterey Road just north of the Blossom Hill Road exit in South San Jose. As of 2 p.m. one of the cables had been repaired and some service had been restored, Britton said.

Update: 04-09-09 PM - AT&T is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever is responsible for the sabotage.
Santa Clara County officials have declared a local emergency after they said someone intentionally cut an underground fiber optic cable in south San Jose, causing a widespread phone service outage in southern Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties today that included disruption to 911 emergency phone service.

John Britton, a spokesman for AT&T, said it appears somebody opened a manhole in South San Jose, climbed down eight to 10 feet and cut four or five fiber-optic cables.Britton also said there was a report of underground cables being cut in San Carlos.

Update: 11:00 AM Service is expected to be restored at around 6 p.m. today.

Speculation: Domestic Terrorism - Phone company expired contract connection?

John Britton, a spokesman for AT&T, said it appears somebody opened a manhole in South San Jose, climbed down 8 to 10 feet and cut four or five fiber-optic cables.
AT&T's contract with the Communication Workers of America expired at 11:59 p.m. Saturday, but Britton said "we have a really good relationship with the union" and that negotiations continue with the union.

Update: 10:00 AM - No estimate when cables will be fixed, Sabotage maybe more extensive than originally thought, report of multiple cable cuts in the Bay Area.

From comment section Mercury News: "To back this up... I work for an ISP in the Bay Area. There are several cuts. All appear to be caused by vandalism in manholes. It appears to be the result of someone cutting through several providers fiber with a hack saw. One of the cuts is in Burlingame and the other cut is on Monterey Highway in south SJ." -Link

Update: Amateur Radio Hams are staffing fire stations to provide backup communications.

Update: 2:30 AM - Severed Fiber optic cable has impacted cellular, ATM, landline in south Santa Clara County, Santa Cruz county, and also impacted San Benito County.

Scanners: Mutual aid channels (such as: 154.920 ; 155.475 and others)
Google Map: - Link


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Police are investigating whether sabotage to a underground fiber optic cable in south San Jose caused a widespread phone service outage in southern Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties this morning that included disruption to 911 emergency phone service, according to law enforcement officials.

The outage is affecting cell phones, land lines and Internet access for Verizon customers in Morgan Hill, Gilroy, San Martin and Santa Cruz County, according to Zachary DeVine, a Santa Clara County spokesman. A county fire dispatcher reported areas of San Benito may also be affected but DeVine had not confirmed that report.

Police and repair crews are at Monterey and Blossom Hill roads in south San Jose where authorities believe someone lifted a manhole cover and went underground to cut the cable, according to police spokesman Ronnie Lopez.

"Verizon is completely down; other carriers are intermittent at best," DeVine said mid-morning.

As of 9:30 a.m., repair crews were in the process of repairing a damaged fiber optic line that caused the widespread outage, DeVine said. The fiber optic line owned is by AT&T and leased to Verizon, DeVine said. There is no timetable for the service to return.

The problem was first reported around 2 a.m. when police in Morgan Hill and Gilroy contacted Santa Clara county dispatchers to report their phones were down. That began a chain of reactions as Santa Clara County officials responded immediately, DeVine said. The county has held over fire crews and has sent additional sheriff's deputies to Morgan Hill and Gilroy.

Police and fire radios remain operational, meaning field officers are able to get calls from dispatchers and communicate with one another to coordinate aid for anyone reporting to a local fire or police station, DeVine said.