Verizon Phone Service Outage On Most Of Roosevelt Island Right Now, RIOC Advises To Call 911 or Flag Down Public Safety Vehicle To Report An Emergency

There is currently a disruption in Verizon land line phone service for many areas of Roosevelt Island. According to the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC):

Please be aware that due to technical difficulties with Verizon, phone lines are temporarily out of service.  In the event of an emergency, please report to the Public Safety Office.

Sincerely,

Roosevelt Island Operating Corp Advisories Group

RIOC Public Safety Department Director Jack McManus asks that if you have a problem to flag down a PSD vehicle patrolling the street or to call 911.

UPDATE 2:35 PM - According to Rivercross building management notice to residents:

Verizon has confirmed to us that cables were cut during construction of Southtown building number 7 today. This has resulted in an Island-wide outage of the following:

VERIZON copper landline telphone service (not FIOS)
ALL TIME WARNER CABLE services, including telephone, internet and television

We have no estimate of when service might be restored....

UPDATE 4:30 PM - According to a spokesperson for Southtown Riverwalk building 7 developer Hudson Related:

Unfortunately unmarked Verizon and Time Warner cables were in the path of excavation for the new DEP force main (sewer) at Riverwalk. The old lines were marked “dead” on all as-built infrastructure drawings and Verizon and Time Warner did not ID/mark them out when they did their utility scan of the site and sidewalk prior to excavation.

Currently Verizon and Time Warner are on site. Time Warner will start repairs after 5:30 pm. It is not known when Verizon will commence or complete their repairs. When we know more from their teams, I will alert you.

and a Verizon spokesperson adds:

Up to three of our cables were cut earlier today. We believe by a contractor doing construction. We will determine who/which at a later point. Right now we have crews onsite and will need to dig to expose the full length of the cables, so they can be properly spliced to repair or replace completely.

The addresses I have as being affected are 455, 465 and 475 Main and 687 Main. May be others. To the best of our knowledge this occurred around Noon. At this point I do not have a time of restoration. But we are on it.

UPDATE 11 PM - Received this statement from Hudson Related at 5:17 PM:

This just came from our team on the ground:

Verizon and Time Warner both on site relocating their lines through the new conduits installed during phase1. They will continue work 24 hours till system is operational.

Rivercross resident reports having Time Warner TV back but not Verizon phone service at 10:30 PM.

UPDATE 9/8 10:40 AM - Hudson Related Spokesperson reports:

As of this morning:

Verizon completed the fiber bypass and fiber service is back on line. The new copper line bypass is installed but not spliced. Splicing crew will start this afternoon or this evening and work until completion.

Time Warner is not onsite this morning which likely means they completed their bypass work.

Hopefully people are starting get back online.