[ARRL-OK] OKMULGEE COUNTY OKLAHOMA TELEPHONE OUTAGE

[Mark D. Conklin N7XYO]

OKMULGEE COUNTY OKLAHOMA TELEPHONE OUTAGE

Okmulgee, Okla – Between 4:00 PM and 6:30 PM on July 24, 2007 a telephone
outage that affected most of Okmulgee County.

Service was knocked out when a fiberoptic cable was cut near Bixby. The
broken cable prevented calls from being router intra-exchange, which meant
callers could not call other areas of the county or outside the county.
County officials were able to contact local AT&T service personal, however
they were unable to contact AT&T’s state service offices in Oklahoma City
to report the outage.

Working with in the counties emergency plan, Fred McGuire, KD5FMU Under
Sheriff of Okmulgee County made a call for assistance via Amateur Radio on
the Tulsa Amateur Radio Club’s UHF link network (the UHF network covers
most of northeastern Okla.).  McGuire’s call for assistance was answered
by Matt Burton WX5LIB a off duty dispatcher for Tulsa Life flight, who was
outside the effected area at the time. Burton is a volunteer with Amateur
Radio Emergency Service (ARES) and was on behalf of the County able to
place calls to AT&T’s state service offices in Oklahoma City, as well at
to the local media so that they could notify the public that that
emergency calls had to be placed directly to police and fire departments.

The County and AT&T worked quickly to get the cable repaired and the
emergency plan (which included Amateur Radio) worked smoothly.

Submited By:
Mark Conklin N7XYO
Assistant Section Emergency Coordinator  - Zone 5 EC
Amateur Radio Emergency Service Oklahoma