Fire brigade to AT&T:
Phone backup and Internet will help save lives
By CHRIS COUNTS
THE MID-COAST Volunteer Fire Brigade — which serves the
north Big Sur Coast — has tried unsuccessfully for more than two
years to strike a deal with AT&T for it to use fire brigade’s generator
to keep phone company’s equipment functioning when the power
goes out. The fire brigade has also sought, without success, to connect
AT&T Internet service to its fire house.
MCVFB Chief Cheryl Goetz told The Pine Cone this week that
despite countless phone calls to AT&T, the generator and Internet
issues remain unresolved. “There’s so much red tape,” Goetz
explained. “There is no clear person to talk to.”
AT&T provides the only telephone service for residents of Palo
Colorado, which is hemmed in by mountains and usually out of the
reach of cell phones towers. And without Internet service for the fire
department, or landline phone service to anyone during a
power outage, Goetz said public safety is compromised in the
rugged, fire-prone community.
“The fire station is considered a critical facility, and
AT&T is unable to work with us to resolve an issue of such
importance,” she said.
When the electricity goes out in the Palo Colorado area —
which is home to several hundred residents — a battery backup
once kept the phones operating for 12 to 16 hours, according
to Goetz. But that was before the Internet.
“Unfortunately, the battery time has diminished significantly
since Internet came to the community [because when
the power goes out] everyone jumps on the Internet to find
out what is going on, which drains the batteries in several
hours now,” she explained.
In 2008, a resident donated a 35-kilowatt generator to
power the firehouse and residential phone service during an
electricity outage. Goetz assumed it would be a simple task
for AT&T to tap power from the generator so residents would
be able to call 911 in the event of an emergency.
Also frustrating for Goetz is the absence of Internet service
at the firehouse. At one point, the fire chief said she was
on the phone with an AT&T representative and was told the
firehouse is located too far from AT&T’s connection box. In
response, Goetz said she was standing “within spitting distance”
of the box. Meanwhile, residents living more than a
mile from the box have Internet service, she observed. But
Goetz’s plea was unsuccessful. “No amount of explaining
would change their mind,” she reported.
The phone dilemma was underscored last week when a
Palo Colorado area resident, Robert Coakley, burned to death
in his home. As the result of a downed eucalyptus tree at
Highway 1 and Palo Colorado Road, electricity — and phone
service — were down when the incident occurred.
