Residents in North Vancouver’s Blueridge neighbourhood have been sitting by the phone but it just won’t ring.
More than 500 Telus landline customers lost service during heavy rains on Monday and they may be waiting for up to a week to get a dial tone.
“It’s been since Monday night. All the phone lines are down. Just dead,” said Bonnie Richter, a Derbyshire Way resident. “Wednesday, it was going to be back on. Thursday it was going to be back on. Now they’re saying they don’t know when the service is going to be back on.”
While those with cellphones have been able to deal with the loss of service, Richter said she’s concerned for people who have home-based businesses and, particularly, seniors who are incommunicado.
“If they’re in their homes alone, it’s a little nerve-wracking to think they can’t call somebody,” she said.
Richter said she had been checking in on one elderly neighbour to make sure all’s well without phone service.
The nuisance has had, though, at least one advantage, Richter said.
“The one good point is we haven’t heard from any telemarketers,” she said with a laugh. “It’s been nice and quiet around that 6 p.m. time when the phone keeps ringing and it’s somebody trying to sell you something.”
According to Telus, rainwater damaged a critical phone line, which now has to be replaced.
“Telus technicians have been working around the clock to address the issue. Once we got in there, we actually saw there was more damage than initially expected so we are replacing the cable to restore service as quickly as possible,” said Telus spokeswoman Emily Hamer. “We’ll be working over the weekend. It may be until early Monday morning. … We will be making this right with affected customers and we’ll sort out what that looks like as soon as possible.”
