Trash truck rips up valley telecom lines

Arrow Refuse truck telephone line fail
This Arrow Refuse truck damaged an Alaska Communications line along Riverside Drive, Feb. 10, 2016. (Photo courtesy Lori Mikkelsen)

If you’re heading home to the valley, you may not be able to make a phone call on a landline or check your Facebook page. That’s because a commercial truck ripped through telephone lines near the Mendenhall Mall on Wednesday afternoon.

Sgt. David Wrightson with the Juneau Police Department said the vehicle was an Arrow Refuse truck that transports long Dumpsters.

“When it dropped the Dumpster off, it left the area of the business that it was delivering the dumpster to with that lift in the air, and so it came through the intersection and caught a telephone line,” Wrightson said.

No one was hurt, but some Alaska Communications services are down. Spokesperson Hannah Blankenship said the interruptions are primarily in neighborhoods in the valley.

“We’ve made it our top priority and we have all folks on deck who can fix the situation and we’ll be updating our customers as we know more,” Blankenship said.

Blankenship didn’t know when the issue would be fixed. She said updates about the repairs will be posted on Facebook and Twitter.

For our Juneau customers– a commercial vehicle damaged one of our phone lines this afternoon, causing voice and Internet…

Posted by Alaska Communications on Wednesday, February 10, 2016

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