Cut fiber lines caused 911, air traffic control outages across Central Coast
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Fiber line damage during construction cut 911 access across two California counties.
- Emergency services and airport communications experienced major regional disruption.
- FAA airspace issues delayed flights and forced NASA mission launch rescheduling.
A 911 emergency number outage that impacted parts of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties was resolved on Wednesday morning.
According to a news release from the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office, 911 service was restored in San Luis Obispo County at around 8:09 a.m.
The outage, which affected both landline and cellular calls for Frontier, Verizon and AT&T customers, started Tuesday and cut 911 service in San Miguel, Arroyo Grande and Nipomo.
In Santa Barbara County, the outage was even more impactful, cutting 911 access across the entire county.
According to Noozhawk.com, a Frontier spokesperson said a third party doing construction work cut fiber lines that led to the service disruption, cutting off fire and emergency services dispatches and causing technical problems for the Santa Barbara Airport’s local air traffic control, delaying flights.
The outage also briefly grounded flights at the San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport, before air traffic control in Los Angeles took over for the region.
City of Santa Barbara engineer Brian D’Amour said in a statement that the fiber optic line was cut between 9:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. on Tuesday, causing the disruption to emergency services and communications at the airport.
“We are actively investigating the cause and taking steps to ensure similar incidents do not occur in the future. Immediate repairs were initiated to restore emergency communication capabilities as quickly as possible,” city officials said in a statement Wednesday morning.
“The city recognizes the seriousness of the service interruption, and we apologize for the inconvenience and concern this incident may have caused.”
FAA airspace concerns also caused Vandenberg Space Force Base officials to abort a NASA mission rocket launch attempt Tuesday and reschedule for Wednesday morning.
According to the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office’s news release, if anyone in the county continues to experience issues reaching 911, they are advised to call the Sheriff’s Office directly at its non-emergency dispatch line: 805-781-4550, option 3.
—Noozhawk executive editor Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com.
