Phones, both land-based and cellular, were down in Oxford and many other areas Sunday afternoon thanks to a raccoon in Pontiac who got into a transformer and caused a power outage in Pontiac.
According to Pat Coats, 9-1-1 coordinator for Oakland County, the outage affected AT&T’s central office in Pontiac. The office does have a backup generator, but a power surge from the outage ‘fried? much of the computer hardware that controls the phone systems, she said.
This affected land lines, cellular carriers and specialty lines used for credit card/debit machines, ATMs and even 9-1-1. ‘Many public safety agencies lost 9-1-1 and their ten-digit administrative numbers,? Coates said.
The Oxford Village Police Dispatch Center was one of those affected. ‘We went down at about 11 a.m. and we were back up by 4 p.m.? according to Head Dispatcher Tony VanHouten, who noted there were no emergencies reported during that time period. ‘Thank God it was a Sunday and not during a weekday.?
Local businesses were also affected. Dave P’Simer, manager at Grove’s True Value, reported the hardware store’s phone lines and internet service, which is used to process credit card and debit purchases, were down starting shortly before 11 a.m.
‘Phone lines didn’t come back until about 4 o’clock, but my internet service, which is where our credit cards go out on, came back sooner,? he said. ‘It was about a five-hour debacle altogether.? ? CJC