Lost connection Friday fire affects area phone services

Ken Johnston

Hello... can you hear me now?
That is what most people found themselves doing on Good Friday when a fire just outside Fort Frances knocked phone services out or at the very least made them very sporadic at best.
Around lunch time a transformer on a pole caught fire just south of Apple Auto Glass in west Fort Frances. The fire burned up some major fibre optics cables that linked the entire west of the district into Bell Canada’s grid.
Phones were dead in many locations and if one was lucky enough to get a dial tone, which often took more than a minute, they often found all they got when they dialed out was a rapid busy signal, signifying all lines were busy.
Bell Canada repair confirmed for the Record Friday afternoon that there was a fire in Fort Frances and that repair crews were on the scene of a major problem. They could not tell the Record how long it would take to fully restore service.
Some people told the Record they could not dial locally only out of town. Others could not dial at all and others still said they had no problems.
Later that evening the Record received a call from Bell repair telling them that service had been fully restored.
No one from Bell was available due to the Easter Monday holiday to explain what repairs were needed.