For about five weeks, Loretta Lawrence had no way to call for help. The West Valley City resident does not own a cellphone, relying entirely on her home phone line, and when that line went dead in June, she was left isolated with health problems and no way to dial an ambulance if something went wrong.
Lawrence contacted CenturyLink about the outage, but the company missed six separate repair appointments before her line was finally fixed, according to KSL News. She told the station her phone simply displayed “no line” no matter what she tried, and since she does not want a cellphone of her own, she had to borrow one just to keep chasing CenturyLink for updates.
“I was isolated and antsy and nervous,” Lawrence said, describing the toll the outage took on her. Without any working phone, she said, she could not have called an ambulance or reached anyone else if she needed emergency help.
A Contractor’s Cut Line and a Wait for Permits
CenturyLink told KSL by email that a third-party contractor inadvertently cut a line during construction, and that the company was awaiting permits to repair it. In West Valley City, utilities and contractors are required to obtain a Right-of-Way Permit through the city’s Engineering Division before excavating or repairing lines in city streets, with standard applications typically reviewed within seven business days, according to West Valley City. It remains unclear how that municipal timeline lined up against CenturyLink’s own repair scheduling, or why six appointments were missed along the way…