Hospitals and businesses are still experiencing phone outages four days after a water pipe break at the Lumen Technologies building in downtown Des Moines led to a statewide outage.The incident started early Thursday morning, leading to a massive telecommunications system failure. Police service was also interrupted, preventing people from dialing 911 from a landline for 24 hours.Mark Molzen, Global Issues Director for Lumen, wrote in an email that most services were back up by 12:30 a.m. Friday, with "a small number" still without service on Monday. Molzen would not give KCCI a specific number of customers who are still without service.The outage left 911 dispatchers unprepared as their backup services were also interrupted. Westcom Emergency Communications Chief Udell Mentola said the dispatch center adapted by using radio and social media to continue communications and let the public know there was an issue.“The Lumen outage was what you would call the perfect storm,” Mentola said. “It was a challenge, but with good communication between our agencies and us, and luckily we have a really robust radio network, we were able to survive and keep going."Mentola said they are planning to coordinate with Des Moines and Polk County on new solutions to avoid a similar situation in the future.Most services were back online by Friday morning, including hospitals. However, MercyOne Hospital is still experiencing some inconsistencies with their telecommunications services and is using alternative methods, Communications Director Eve Ledermen said.Despite the outage, Ledermen said there were no disruptions in patient care at MercyOne.Some businesses on the south side of Des Moines are also waiting to have their service restored, including B&B Grocery, Meat and Deli. Co-owner Joe Brooks said they are only accepting cash and EBT as the outage has left them unable to process credit cards.Brooks said some people will come in and pay with cash, but others have left because they aren’t accepting credit cards.Brooks has begun investigating different options for phone and internet services, such as Mediacom, because of the length of the outage.“I know outages happen, but usually not this long,” Brooks said.
DES MOINES, Iowa —
Hospitals and businesses are still experiencing phone outages four days after a water pipe break at the Lumen Technologies building in downtown Des Moines led to a statewide outage.
The incident started early Thursday morning, leading to a massive telecommunications system failure. Police service was also interrupted, preventing people from dialing 911 from a landline for 24 hours.
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Mark Molzen, Global Issues Director for Lumen, wrote in an email that most services were back up by 12:30 a.m. Friday, with "a small number" still without service on Monday. Molzen would not give KCCI a specific number of customers who are still without service.
The outage left 911 dispatchers unprepared as their backup services were also interrupted. Westcom Emergency Communications Chief Udell Mentola said the dispatch center adapted by using radio and social media to continue communications and let the public know there was an issue.
“The Lumen outage was what you would call the perfect storm,” Mentola said. “It was a challenge, but with good communication between our agencies and us, and luckily we have a really robust radio network, we were able to survive and keep going."
Why Lumen's water leak caused such widespread phone, internet outages
Mentola said they are planning to coordinate with Des Moines and Polk County on new solutions to avoid a similar situation in the future.
Most services were back online by Friday morning, including hospitals. However, MercyOne Hospital is still experiencing some inconsistencies with their telecommunications services and is using alternative methods, Communications Director Eve Ledermen said.
Despite the outage, Ledermen said there were no disruptions in patient care at MercyOne.
Some businesses on the south side of Des Moines are also waiting to have their service restored, including B&B Grocery, Meat and Deli. Co-owner Joe Brooks said they are only accepting cash and EBT as the outage has left them unable to process credit cards.
Brooks said some people will come in and pay with cash, but others have left because they aren’t accepting credit cards.
Brooks has begun investigating different options for phone and internet services, such as Mediacom, because of the length of the outage.
“I know outages happen, but usually not this long,” Brooks said.
