Phone lines down
Both administration and students were left wondering how to carry about daily office activities when phone lines went down at approximately 11:30 a.m. Tuesday.
Phone lines went down at both in the Taggart Student Center and Veterinary Science and Bacteriology Buildings, said John Baxter, Cache Valley Electric Data Division project manager.
Construction workers were putting in anchor poles so the water line wouldn’t fall into the trench, said Dave Forsgren, Whitaker Construction project manager.
While cautious of one potential problem, another resulted.
“They [construction workers] accidentally drove a four-inch pipe through a nine-inchway duct bank,” Baxter said.
This severed a 1,800-pair cable, which weighs seven and one-half pounds per foot, he said.
The cable stretches about 600 feet. A new cable pull has to be spliced back together, said Dave Wells, Cache Valley Electric employee.
The cable severed was a “major artery” that originates in the Science Engineering Research Building and branches out, going south, Baxter said.
“This is the first unplanned outage we’ve really had,” he said. “We will work through the night to restore everything.”
Phones are scheduled to be in service today at 8:30 a.m.
Forsgren said it is “the first major communication system we’ve interrupted at this magnitude.”
Cache Valley Electric Division handles telephone, fiber optics, Forsgren said.
He said “the fix will be a temporary fix.”
The temporary fix will involve repairing the old cable and ordering a new one, he said.ss