Santa Barbara County’s 9-1-1 dispatch center phone lines were working again Wednesday morning after repair crews worked to restore service to severed Frontier fiber lines.
The Santa Barbara Police Department said 9-1-1 lines have been restored across the county as of 9 a.m.
County Office of Emergency Management Director Kelly Hubbard said “everybody is coming back online” and agencies are testing their systems.
Members of the public should only call 9-1-1 for emergencies, not to test the system, she noted.
The 9-1-1 phone lines to local dispatch centers were down most of Tuesday and into Wednesday morning. Dispatchers answer emergency calls and send responders including law enforcement, fire and medical crews.
Agencies provided alternative numbers to reach dispatch centers during the outage, and reminded residents that everyone in Santa Barbara County can text 9-1-1 to reach dispatchers anytime.
The fiber lines were reportedly severed by a third-party construction crew doing work, according to Frontier. The company did not say where the work was occurring.
San Luis Obispo County also restored its 9-1-1 phone lines as of Wednesday morning.
“We’ve repaired the damage, and our network is back up and running,” a Frontier spokesperson said in a statement. “Some consumers may be continuing to experience service disruption depending on their service provider.”
Commercial Flights Resume at Santa Barbara Airport
The severed fiber line also caused a communications outage at the Federal Aviation Administration Santa Barbara Air Traffic Control Tower and Terminal Radar Approach Control, which manages local airspace.
The FAA grounded flights at Santa Barbara Airport for most of the day Tuesday, causing at least 15 canceled flights and some diversions for incoming planes.
Airport officials announced shortly after 11 a.m. Wednesday that the ground stop had been lifted, and commercial flights in and out of the airport were resuming.
It’s expected that it will take some time before schedules return to normal.
City of Santa Barbara engineer Brian D’Amour said in a statement that the fiber optic line was cut between 9:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. on Tuesday, causing the disruption to emergency services and communications at the airport.
“We are actively investigating the cause and taking steps to ensure similar incidents do not occur in the future. Immediate repairs were initiated to restore emergency communication capabilities as quickly as possible,” city officials said in a statement Wednesday morning.
“The city recognizes the seriousness of the service interruption, and we apologize for the inconvenience and concern this incident may have caused.”
No flights were arriving or departing at Santa Barbara Airport as of early Wednesday morning. The earliest flights of the day, such as a 5:40 a.m. plane to Las Vegas, were showing delay times to at least 11 a.m.
Airport officials advised passengers to check with their airlines for the latest flight information.
The San Luis Obispo Airport paused then restarted operations Tuesday after a Los Angeles air traffic control center “assumed responsibility for the affected airspace,” according to airport officials.
FAA airspace concerns caused Vandenberg Space Force Base officials to abort a NASA mission rocket launch attempt Tuesday and reschedule for Wednesday morning.
Check back with Noozhawk for updates to this story.