Phone Repaired 38 Days After Storm Woman Among Dozens With Dial Tone Again

While most of the Inland Northwest exchanged Christmas greetings, Jessie Salicis called distant relatives on a borrowed cellular telephone.

Thirty-eight days after an ice storm brought down trees and power lines in Spokane, the Garden Springs resident was among 70 US West customers either without telephone service or with trouble on the line.

Friday afternoon, her service was restored.

“It was fixed five minutes ago and it’s great. It’s been out since Nov. 19.”

When power lines went down outside Salicis’ home off Government Way, south of Interstate 90, she and her husband, Douglas, moved into a borrowed motor home. Seven days later, their power was restored.

By Dec. 1, all Washington Water Power customers were back on; all Inland Power & Light customers by Dec. 6.

But the Salicis’ home and others, mostly in isolated areas, remained without telephones.

“We are doing everything we can to restore that service as quickly as possible,” said Annette Miller, area manager for US West in Spokane.

Repair crews had to first wait until power was restored and then were delayed by older lead cables in the Garden Springs area that had been burned by electrical wires. Those lines had to be replaced, and a pair of cables spliced for each individual residence.

“It was really a very complicated fix,” Miller said.

In the meantime, the Salicis’ telephone would ring, but noise on the line was so loud it was unusable.

Salicis called the regional US West repair number at least five times and was told that the service “would be fixed by 11 p.m. tonight.”

An Avon lady, Salicis all but gave up trying to fill orders this month. She hoped nothing would happen to her husband, who suffers a crippling back disability, while she went to work at Sacred Heart Medical Center.

Up to six US West trucks were in the neighborhood working on Christmas Eve. But she is still bothered that she couldn’t speak to a local representative, get anyone to look at a downed cable in her back yard or get a cellular telephone to use in the interim. She borrowed her visiting daughter’s.

Miller said there is no US West policy regarding cellular telephones but the company did offer to forward calls for free to a telephone that worked. She said people can request a Spokane manager call them back when they reach the regional office.

“I just hope they’re not planning to send me a bill for last month,” Salicis said.

Miller said residential customers who lost telephone service should call the US West business office at 1-800-244-1111 for information on adjusting their bill.

“They will absolutely be credited for their outage,” she said.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: LOST SERVICE? Residential customers who lost telephone service should call the US West business office at 1-800-244-1111 for information on adjusting their bill.