Brandon Twp – More than 3,200 Brandon township residents were without phones for almost three hours on Monday, July 21.
Rumor had it that the phones went dead in Ortonville after the Department of Public Works snapped an underground phone line, while working on Mill and James streets.
The DPW was not working in the area at the time. The loss was an internal Verizon malfunction.
The lines went dead in homes and businesses during the heaviest calling hours throughout Brandon because a commercial power failure occured at the switching station on Narrin Street, in the village.
‘Basically you lost your link to the outside world,? said John VanWyck, Verizon Director of External Communications for Michigan.
VanWyck said the switching equipment is a big computer and when the power went out at the station the generator went on but computer identification circuits were lost.
The computer identification circuits complete a call by giving a series of information to the main computers.
‘When the power went out and generator went on the computer information did not switch over,? VanWyck said.
The problem was fixed within hours, but some local business owners were left wondering how much business they lost in the down time.