Modern Conveniences Crashed by Old Fashioned Accident

Modern Conveniences Crashed by Old Fashioned Accident

By Lee Revis
Editor, Valdez Star

VALDEZ - In a series of unrelated events, Valdez consumers have been plagued by a variety of outages from everything from regular electricity to cell phone usage, causing disruption and havoc for many businesses and minor inconveniences for others.

The longest lasting problem occurred last Wednesday when crews from Swalling Construction were driving pipe piles for a temporary bridge on the Dayville Road project drove a 24” round piling through the fiber optics cable near Solomon Creek that services the Valdez Marine Terminal. “The cable was cut about 9:30 a.m., said Jim Gifford, the Valdez Plant Superintendent for Copper Valley Telephone Cooperative.

According to Gifford, the pile cut off not only CVTC cable, but also that of Alaska Fiber Star, who provides cable connectivity undersea from Valdez to Whittier and beyond. Suddenly, cell phones, long distance telephone services and internet connections were crippled all around town while crews from CVTC scrambled to the scene to assess damages and try to restore services to customers.

“We made emergency repairs” said Gifford, who says the company had to splice a new cable between the two ends of the severed cables for CVTC and Alaska Fiber Star.

While services provided by CVTC were up and running again by 8:00 p.m., Alaska Fiber Star services were not back online until around midnight. “We rerouted their traffic,” said Gifford.

What still is not clear a week later is why the accident happened. According to DOT Project Manager Jim Payne, it is the responsibility of the contractor, in this case, Swalling Construction, to know the location of underground utilities prior to doing any kind of work underground, including driving pile. “They’re required to get a locate on the utilities prior too,” he said. “It’s the contractors responsibility.”

Swalling Construction did not return our call regarding the incident.

There was no dollar figure available on the monetary damages incurred by CVTC as of this printing.