MAYOR: 'SAPPHO GAP' MUST BE FIXED

By Chris Cook - Forks Forum editor

No more 911 outages for Forks and the West End is the goal of a meeting being set up by Forks Mayor Nedra Reed this week over what’s known as the “Sappho Gap.”

On Tuesday, Aug. 26 the region lost for over seven hours 911 service that links the Port Angeles-based system with Forks and the West End, along with long distance and broadband Internet service.

The cause was the accidental cutting of a fiber-optic cable at a location between Aberdeen and Forks. Reportedly, a highway crew installing guard rails split the cable but only after they had requested clearance to dig at the spot along Highway 101. A miscommunication allowed them to dig atop the underground fiber-optic cable and it was cut.

The problem was a lack of what telephone technicians term redundancy. In other words, if a break in the line happens to the south of Forks, a connection to the north of town should keep the phone signal alive.

That redundancy was supposed to be provided by Washington Community Economic Revitalization Board (CERB) funding awarded over five years ago.

The gap was once connected using microwave towers and radio signals and provided questionable, unreliable service.
It appears that the funds were used to lay fiber-optic cable across the 26-mile-wide gap that runs from Century Tel lines that juncture at West Wind Road at Sappho just north of Beaver to Qwest lines that reach into Port Angeles from Joyce.
Century Tel provides phone service to the West End, while Qwest serves the Port Angeles region.

Though both phone companies are saying the gap is no more, and that redundant services are in place, the outage showed there is a problem with the system.

Apparently, the fiber-optic cable is in place, but there is no phone signal coming across the gap, or there is a problem when phone service goes out to the south of Forks.

Reed said Friday that the City of Forks backed the funding to help in attracting a call center then being put together by Washington Dental Service that would have brought several dozen new jobs to Forks. The project fell through, but the gap funding was awarded and helped qualify Forks as a community with redundant phone service that telecommunications-critical businesses could use.

The mayor said she has been getting conflicting explanations from Century Tel and Qwest.

“The Sappho Gap needs to be closed,” Reed said Friday. She is asking the phone companies to have their technicians to find the problem and fix it.

If the phone companies balk, Reed said the City of Forks is ready to go to the state Office of Public Policy and the Federal Communications Commission for the solution.

Reed said on Tuesday the Opscan standalone communication system came into play to keep the 911 lines of communications open the day of the outage. She said Opscan can be accessed by emergency agencies, the Forks Community Hospital, the Forks Police Department and the City of Forks, as well as similar agencies around the north Olympic Peninsula.

“911 calls to Forks first go to Port Angeles,” she said, then are turned around and sent to Forks. If there’s no phone connection to Port Angeles, then the 911 calls aren’t received in Forks. She said the Forks Community Hospital was forced to hold a radiologist overnight due to the lack of broadband connection to the outside.

The mayor said state Rep. Lynn Kessler, D-Hoaquiam, was on a re-election campaign visit to Forks on Wednesday and is aware of the situation, and has promised her help in resolving the situation.