Verizon Wireless On Wheels Available At Good Shepherd Plaza For Those Without Phone Service - 6 Days Since Roosevelt Island Phone Outage Caused By Cables Cut During Riverwalk Building 7 Construction

Image Of Verizon Wireless On Wheels at Roosevelt Island Good Shepherd Plaza

As reported November 9:

... a cable mistakenly cut last Thursday during the construction of Southtown Riverwalk building 7 caused the loss of Verizon land line phone service and Time Warner cable service to large portions of Roosevelt Island. Time Warner Cable service 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....

Image Of Southtown Riverwalk Building 7 Construction Site

The Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) just sent out the following update:

Verizon has installed a "Wireless on Wheels" trailer on Good Shepherd Plaza on the south side of the Good Shepherd Community Center. This trailer, which is available free of charge, is equipped with fifteen cell phones, I- Pads for checking e-mails, and Wi-Fi service. The trailer will available until service is fully restored. Please feel free to avail yourself of these services.

Sincerely,

Roosevelt Island Operating Corp Advisories Group

A Verizon Spokesperson added this afternoon:

Four of our cables were cut, two fiber and two copper. In round numbers, it was about 1,300 lines. The fiber cables were restored over the weekend, and that was about 400 lines/customers. The copper cables are much more difficult to restore, they require much more splicing. We have restored about another 400 lines thus far on one of the copper lines. As we continue to splice “pairs” within the cables, customers will be restored over the next couple of days. In addition, we have given some voice phones and Jetpacks (for data) deployed yesterday to Public Safety group on RI for distribution to residents who have urgent need. We are also setting up a mobile trailer that contains phones for residents’ use.

UPDATE 4:15 PM - From RIOC

Please be advised that the Verizon trailer service will be available from 9 A.M. until 5 P.M. daily.

Sincerely,

Roosevelt Island Operating Corp Advisories Group

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

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.

Roosevelt Island Cable and Internet Inquiry

A reader who will be moving to Roosevelt Island soon asks for recommendations on Cable and Internet packages.

Many thanks for your lovely blog on Roosevelt Island. It is really great to read about the place before actually moving there. I will be moving into Southtown and would appreciate if you have any recommendations on Cable and Internet packages and providers for Southtown.

Time Warner Cable and Verizon are the only two companies as of now that provide such service. TW is promoting a Triple Play 50% off of the first two months service for cable tv, high speed online and digital phone. I subscribe to their cable and broadband service but am very leery of digital phone. If the cable service goes out phone service is lost as well so I use Verizon land line phone service although I am seriously considering dropping land line and just going wireless. I am satisfied with the TW cable and Roadrunner broadband service but they can always do better and if a faster system comes along I would give it a shot. I do not know anything about the quality of Verizon's DSL service to Roosevelt Island but understand that their high speed FIOS service may be available here soon. The Octagon building has some additional options though I am not aware of the details.
Hope that helps.