Skip to content

Phone service back on in Salmon Valley

Salmon Arm resident Heath Clancey was not impressed with a Telus repair timeline after a truck tore telephone wires from a pole
4146salmonarmJMtelephonepolereplacement0713col
Specialized fix required: Telus repair crew members reconnect the lines after replacing a telephone pole that was damaged Wednesday by a passing truck.

Salmon Arm resident Heath Clancey was not impressed with a Telus repair timeline after a truck tore telephone wires from a pole on the afternoon of Wednesday, July 11.

Clancey, who lives near the downed wires, phoned Telus following the incident that cut phone service to about 30 residents near the corner of 50th Street and 70th Avenue SW.

He says Telus told him they could not do anything about it until July 16.

That did not sit well with Clancey, who emailed the Observer at 8:33 a.m. Thursday, July 12 to complain about the length of time he and his neighbours were expected to be without service.

Not only were they without phone service, but the lines were left lying in the road and about one third of one side of the pole was razed off and lying at the side of a farmer’s field.

“This is unacceptable and dangerous,” he wrote.

Speaking from his Vancouver office Friday, Shawn Hall, media rep for the communications company, says Telus only heard about the incident late Thursday morning.

He says there was a delay in repairing the pole and downed lines because a specialized truck and crew were needed and weren’t available at the time of the call.

“We had to bring in a special pole crew and line crew and vacuum truck because there’s water in the ground,” he said Friday. “Before we could replace the pole, we had to get the water out.”

Hall expected repairs to  have been completed and service restored by dinner time Friday.