Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

These six emergency phones were used for communications at City Hall when power failed during storms two weeks ago.

Bells were ringing, but not at City Hall

By Sarah Lombardo

City officials say they aren't worried about bad weather knocking out phone service to City Hall, as it did earlier this month when phones were out for almost three days. It's not likely to happen again, City Manager Larry Perlin said.

"It was an extremely rare or unlikely problem," Perlin said. "It was something the phone people wouldn't have known to look for."

During this month's harsh winds and rain, City Hall lost power Feb. 2 and had to use backup generators. Overnight, power was restored, but the phones went down--and stayed down until about noon on Feb. 5. Perlin said the downed phones were caused by a power surge that blew out part of an internal city power supply line to the phone system.

When Pacific Bell crews arrived to fix the problem, they could not determine whether the problem was with their lines or the city's. In fact, Lydia Bell, a Pac Bell spokeswoman, told the Saratoga News during the outage that her computer showed no problems with phone service in the Saratoga area at all. Residents who called the city during that time, however, heard only a recording stating that all circuits were busy.

The city had to set up emergency phones from the Emergency Operations Center in order to make outgoing calls. Some staffers even said they used a pay phone.

Once crews discovered the problem, Perlin said, it took them about five minutes to restore phone service.

Public Safety Commission Chairman Hugh Hexamer said the interruption in City Hall's phone service isn't something to get too worried about. "In terms of public safety, the providers of public safety--[ambulance service], the fire district and the sheriff--were all available through 911," he said.

But some city staffers were concerned.

"From an employee's perspective, it was frustrating because it was hard to get back to people," administrative analyst Irene Jacobs said. "My job involves a lot of contact with people over the phone. But people couldn't get ahold of us."

Citing the high number of seniors who make up Saratoga's population, Jacobs said she also found it disturbing that City Hall was not there for residents who may have wanted information during the storms. "From an emergency standpoint, I was concerned. I was concerned that people couldn't get through to us to be reassured that everything was OK," she said.

And the phone outage was inconvenient. City staffers in charge of calling volunteers to fill sandbags in the city's corporation yard for residents had no way to do so. Instead, they recruited teens from the Warner Hutton House teen center to help out.

During harsh storms in December 1995, phone service and power at Los Gatos Town Hall were knocked out. Town officials later met with Pacific Gas and Electric representatives to work out a plan to prevent it from happening again. As a result, the power company agreed to install a second circuit at the Civic Center, which houses the police station, the Los Gatos Library and town government offices. It also agreed to set up an emergency phone line for Town Hall.

Perlin said Saratoga is also looking into preventing future problems.

"What we're now trying to do is find a backup phone line that goes up to the main line," Perlin said. That phone line would pick up calls that go into the city's main phone number so that residents calling the city can get through. He also said he is talking with Pac Bell officials about ordering a spare of the part that needed to be replaced.

But that might not be enough for some city staffers, who said they thought the phone outage was a wake-up call to the city about being better prepared. Many new employees have not been trained in what to do in case of an emergency, according to one staffer, who also pointed out that the city's official emergency plan hasn't been updated in years.

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