Saturday, November 9, 2013

After 3 Days Verizon Land Line Phone Service Still Out For Many On Roosevelt Island, Not Known When Service Will Be Restored - In Emergency Use Yellow Call Boxes Located On Island Says RIOC

Image Of Verizon Repair Truck On Main Street

As previously reported, a cable mistakenly cut last Thursday during the construction of Southtown Riverwalk building 7

Image Of Southtown Riverwalk Building 7 Construction Site

caused the loss of Verizon land line phone service and Time Warner cable service to large portions of Roosevelt Island. Time Warner Cable service

Image Of Time Warner Cable Repair Truck

was restored later that evening but Verizon land line phone service is still out of service and it is not known yet when service will be restored.

If you do not have phone service, in the event of an emergency the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) advises
Please be advised, as an alternative means of accessing a 911 operator during the phone outage is by utilizing one of the Yellow emergency call boxes that are situated throughout the island. Please follow the instructions located inside of the box. It should be noted, however that the Silver emergency call boxes have been compromised by the outage and are not operational.

Sincerely,

Roosevelt Island Operating Corp Advisories Group
There are many senior citizens and others on Roosevelt Island who do not have cell phone service. Losing their land phone line is a great burden to them so I hope Verizon gets land line phone service repaired and running very soon.

UPDATE 8:30 PM - RIOC Public Safety Department adds:
Yellow Emergency Call Boxes can be found at following locations-
1) South of 1 Main St(Goldwater Hospital) Call Box#7804
2) West Drive(Opposite 455 Main St- Starbucks) Call Box#7805
3) West Seawall (Rear of 8 River Rd) Call Box#7802
4) East Roadway (Front of Octagon Tennis Courts) Call Box#7801
5) East Seawall (Rear of 540-560 Main St) Call Box#7807

11 comments :

Mark Lyon said...

Notify NYC just circulated a similar message:

Notification issued 11/9/13 at 8:00 PM. Roosevelt Island is currently experiencing a partial land-line phone service outage. Repairs are in progress. Cell phone service is normal; however, as an alternative means of accessing a 911 operator during the phone outage, utilize one of the yellow emergency call boxes that are situated throughout the island. Please follow the instructions located inside of the box. Please note that the silver emergency call boxes have been compromised by the outage and are not operational.

The sender provided the following contact information.
Sender's Name: Notify NYC
Sender's Email: notifynyc@oem.nyc.gov
Sender's Contact Phone: 212-639-9675

rilander said...

They cut the cables around 10 AM on Thursday yet kept digging all day. As Frank Farance mentioned in an earlier post, they may not have gotten construction drawings from RIOC, and if they did they probably weren't accurate. But they had to have noticed that they cut through a plastic conduit. Immediately the NYC Building Department must shut them down until everything is repaired and the drawings are updated. Who knows...there may even be electric or gas lines there too. RIOC and H-R must be taken to task for this. They are causing financial loss to the businesses here and they are putting many people in harm's way because they are without phone service. They bungle just about everything they can get their hands on!

YetAnotherRIer said...

And this is all based on one man's comment that some plans *may* not be current enough or quality-wise not up to par. We already made up our minds what actually went down again, eh?

Frank Farance said...

YetAnotherRIer, you can't help yourself from complaining that someone else makes an effort to get information and share it. Realistically, the infrastructure drawings seem to be at the center of this because: one entity believes there are no utilities (Billy Backhoe), other entities know there are utilities buried there (Verizon, Time-Warner), and another entity is responsible for maintaining them (RIOC).

As RIRA Planning Committee Chair, I sat in the meetings in RIOC where the map quality issues were discussed. You can seen in my response below, that I've asked Rick to inquire future. I even provided helpful links to understand the relevant standards. What is wrong with looking into the cause of the outage, especially one that will affect the Island significantly and for such a long period? We have a right to know? Why are you against that?

Below, please find my question to Rick, and my links ...


---------------------

The infrastructure drawings are maintained by RIOC and an independent contractor said that the present drawings (a couple years ago) were inaccurate. RIOC was supposed to upgrade all those drawings to current standards. It seems odd that TWO utility companies would get this wrong, more likely the RIOC drawings were out of date or inaccurate.

Rick, maybe you can inquire about the dates of the drawings and (more importantly) the GIS drawing quality level (A, B, C, D). With the phones out for 2-3 weeks on Island construction, we really need to understand this better.

My recollection is that the drawings RIOC had were at Quality Level D and they needed to be at Quality Level B. Here's two links that explain the levels. The first is a powerpoint summary on slides 5-9 (see "http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.mapps.org/resource/resmgr/2013_summer_conference/croshaw-mapps_utility_survey.pdf"). The second is the excerpt of the ASCE standard "Standard Guideline for the Collection and Depiction of Existing Subsurface Utility Data", which is dense standards prose (see "http://www.dot.ga.gov/doingbusiness/utilities/sue/Documents/ASCE%2038-02.pdf").

CheshireKitty said...

The outage occurred as a result of the building excavation operations. The contractor undoubtedly consulted infrastructure drawings regarding the RIOC-controlled land. Either the contractor ignored the indications of utility lines or the drawings were inaccurate. Either way, I agree with rilander that the construction operations should be shut down so that the contractor can focus on the repairs, and at the same time, RIOC can update their drawings.


As far as possible negligence lawsuits that individuals or businesses may wish to file, that will remain to be seen. It depends on if the outage indeed lasts 21 days days - which is an awfully long time for a business or individual to go without land line phone service. If, on the other hand, the contractor can focus on the repairs, perhaps the outage and possible lawsuits vs the contractor or RIOC can be minimized.

Bill Blass said...

Kitty i know you are all for immigration reform. All these politicians are falling all over them selves so they can get the Hispanic vote.but do you know who is going to suffer more.its the black young men that's who. These black men need jobs.the jails are filled with young black men because they can't get a job.I wish there politicians would stop cantering to these illegal immigrants just because they want the Hispanic vote.and do something for the black young men

CheshireKitty said...

I'm hoping Deblasio will do something about education, especially with his plan for universal pre-K and after-school programs - which may translate into leveling the playing field between the rich, suburban kids who are getting most of the jobs, and the inner-city youth, who should be getting their fair share or at least some of the jobs.

OldRossie said...

what jobs?

rilander said...

Really Mark, if someone has chest pains at night, is s(he) going to put on a coat and walk around the island to find a yellow call box?

Mark Lyon said...

It's doubtful, but that's the system they've set up.

rilander said...

If you don't agree the drawings were not accurate, then please explain why the construction workers broke the conduit (big plastic underground pipe) with all the communications cables around 10AM and then kept digging all day to cause further damage? Are you expecting us to believe that they knew that the cables were there? And if that's the case why didn't you call the NYC Dept of Buildings? Oh...wait a minute, you'd rather dump your venom on your fellow residents, right?