Emergency communications centers from across the state have filed an official complaint after 911 outages in June and July.
It was filed with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission by 12 mostly Western Slope agencies, including Cortez Dispatch and the Durango – La Plata Emergency Communications Center at the end of August against CenturyLink, Charter Communications, Tri-State Generation & Transmission Association and other telephone providers.
The document lists at least eight days over a three-week period when at least one emergency communication center experienced an outage.
None of the emergency communication centers were notified of an outage in a timely manner, and in some instances neighboring emergency communications notified one another, according to the complaint.
During some outages, 911 calls were handled by other call centers.
In Montezuma County, service went down about 3 p.m. June 17 and was not fully restored in the area until about 10 p.m. The cut, attributed to a construction crew’s misstep, was to a line owned by Tri-State and leased to CenturyLink.
City of Cortez Communications Supervisor Lori Johnson said in the complaint that Cortez was without all 911 service during the June 17 outage, and calls were rerouted to Montrose County. Cortez Dispatch received only two emergency calls during that time, a traffic accident and a medical call.
The June 17 outage in Durango lasted for about 10 hours, and during that time calls were routed through Montrose. But rerouting was not always possible.
In Norwood, volunteers had to be stationed in key geographic location, with radios in lieu of a direct 911 connection, according to the complaint.
“As a consequence of the outages and lack of notification, the citizens of these communities were put in danger,” the complaint states.
In the complaint, the Western Slope agencies ask the Public Utilities Commission to require telecommunications providers to develop a plan to communicate with them during outages.
The emergency communications agencies want to be sure companies know who to contact when outages happen, said Mandy Stollsteimer, executive director of the Western Colorado Regional Dispatch Center in Montrose.
“Overall, our goal is to ensure we have those relationships in place so we can provide the emergency services to the community,” she said.
The agencies also call for a statewide communication diversity plan. The plan would show where the redundant communication lines are, if they exist, Stollsteimer said.
It would also help emergency centers to know where 911 calls would be routed during an outage, she said.
The agencies acknowledge in the complaint that redundant communication lines may be expensive, but solutions should be explored.
“We feel collaborating with service providers on alternate methods or use of different technology (i.e. broadband) to build diversity and redundancy is the path to success in solving this problem,” the complaint states.
A hearing about the complaint is set for November, but that will likely be rescheduled, said Terry Bote, external affairs manager for the Public Utilities Commission.
CenturyLink, Charter Communications and Tri-State could not be reached Wednesday for comment on the complaint.
mshinn@durangoherald.comThe Journal reporter Jacob Klopfenstein contributed to this story.