Approximately 35 City of Seattle facilities lost landline phone service on Wednesday after a construction crew working downtown cut a fiber line.
The crew was cutting cement near 6th Ave. and Virginia Street when it accidentally cut the line around 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, a city spokesman said. Officials had isolated the issue by 1 p.m., but several city buildings, including part of the Seattle Police Department, were without landline phone service for much of the day.
The city’s Emergency Operations Center was among the services affected, but officials said 911 service was operational throughout the outage. Most Seattle Fire stations also lost service, along with Seattle City Hall and the Seattle Municipal Court.
City Hall was also hit by a power outage last May, when an equipment failure knocked out power for much of the downtown Seattle area. According to a spokesman, Wednesday’s fiber line outage didn’t affect a specific area, but rather buildings spread throughout the city.
Most of the services were restored by 4 p.m.
