Updated 6 a.m. Friday
An outage affecting coastside Comcast and Verizon customers for hours Thursday afternoon has been repaired, according to the San Mateo County Sheriff's Department.
Coastside residents reported losing Internet and cellular phone service starting around 3:30 p.m. The San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office began receiving more reports of no cell phone and/or Internet service from residents around 5 p.m. At that time, technicians were already actively testing cell towers to determine the root of the problem.
The Sheriff's Department reported it was repaired shortly after midnight.
"The culprit was a broken piece of fiber optic cable that has since been repaired," said Sheriff’s Office Deputy Rebecca Rosenblatt.
During the outage, customers needing emergency assistance who didn't have working landlines were advised to go to the sheriff's substations in Moss Beach of Half Moon Bay.
The Sheriff’s Office also assigned additional marked patrol deputies to circulate the unincorporated Coastside neighborhoods and Half Moon Bay should citizens need assistance.
Linda Handley-Newton wrote in on Half Moon Bay Patch's Facebook page that she ended up in Pacifica sitting in the Safeway parking lot to get cell service and make calls.
Other Coastsiders had the same idea. Lye Berryann says she also drove to Pacifica to get Verizon service. "What the 'H' happened? Xfinity Internet and phone went out around 3:30, Verizon cell went out around 4, and Xfinity cable out at 10:30 p.m.," she said. A Verizon serviceman told her it could be a fiber optic line that was damaged since multiple services share the cable.
Jayne Williams went to Starbucks which did "a roaring trade as people came pouring in there to use the WiFi."
Those with AT&T and Coastside.net still had service. The outage affected carriers Comcast, Verizon and Vonage.
"Coastside.net really came through for us and has been much more reliable than Comcast," said Michelle Heeren Walford.
Scott Fortlage said outages like this is the reason why he still has hard wired service in his house.
How did you handle the outage? Did it effect you or your work at all?
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