It was a terrible Tuesday for some people living in the Texas hill country area.
AT&T has reported a third party contractor working on a drainage ditch in Waring cut a fiber optic line. It caused landlines, cell phones, and pager systems to go down throughout the Hill Country.
The problem was not isolated to AT&T carriers. Several other carriers experienced outage problems as well because of the cut line.
Staff at Peterson Regional Medical Center in Kerrville was called into a command center at the hospital. Plans were made for required communication.Satellite phones were put in the command center and at the police department. E-mail was still available, but only if was computer to computer. On-call doctors for the night were given special pagers and communication instructions.
Those who lived outside city limits experienced the most trouble calling 911. They were told their best option was to drive to their closet fire department to get help.
Seven hours later, AT&T said the line was repaired.
