It’s been almost a year since Cook County and the rest of the North Shore was cut off from communication with the outside world when a Qwest Communications fiber optic cable melted under a street in Duluth. For about 12 hours on January 26, 2010, residents, businesses, government offices, and emergency systems went without long-distance phone service, Internet access, and cell phone coverage. Qwest blamed Duluth Steam Cooperative Association, whose nearby line is believed to have caused the heat that melted the cable, and Duluth Steam blamed Qwest for not adequately insulating its conduit. Where does the disagreement stand today?
Changes made to Qwest’s system
In response to an inquiry from the Cook County News-Herald, Qwest Spokesperson Joanna Hjelmeland indicated that Qwest has been working on creating alternate routes around Duluth Steam infrastructure “between several key network points.” The company is in the process of routing traffic along the alternate pathways.
“In the event of a facility cut/failure,” Hjelmeland wrote in an email, “all traffic will be instantaneously rerouted on the diverse facility leg, without service interruption. The facility’s circuits [will] also be ‘alarmed,’ which will alert Qwest that a service interruption and reroute has taken place.”
Legal action considered
In a March 15 letter to Western National Mutual Insurance Company, Qwest Corporate Counsel Jason Topp wrote, “If forced to do so, Qwest would consider bringing claims for (1) trespass; (2) nuisance; (3) negligent maintenance; (4) defective design; (5) negligent failure to warn; and (6) strict liability as well as any other claims the facts ultimately support.
“…If forced to bring a lawsuit related to this issue, Qwest reserves the right to assert additional damages, including the revenue it lost as a result of this incident, employee time spent dealing with this incident and for any other category cognizable under applicable law.”
Qwest spokesperson Hjelmeland said no decision has been made regarding the pursuit of legal action.
In a phone interview on January 4, 2011, Duluth Steam General Manager Gerald Pelofske said that his office had received a letter from their insurance company stating that they were aware that U.S. West Communications, the company that installed the fiber optic cable now owned by Qwest, was informed by Duluth Steam “10 years ago” that its conduits were not insulated where they crossed the steam mains. A May 10, 1996 letter from Duluth Steam to U.S. West expressed concern over conduit that had been laid “without any insulation to protect the plastic conduit.” The letter goes on to say, “…We are concerned because of problems they [U.S. West’s conduits] have had in the past when crossing our steam mains without any protection from higher temperatures related to high pressure, high temperature steam mains.” Duluth Steam provides seven to eight miles of high-pressure steam, hot water, and chilled water to 225 buildings in downtown Duluth.
The outage affected over 3,500 square miles with a combined population of more than 16,000. It highlighted a potentially serious risk to the county’s emergency response system: 911 calls within Cook County must go to Duluth before being routed to the Cook County Law Enforcement Center in Grand Marais. Calls within the county’s four phone exchanges (475, 388, 387, and 663) could still be made during the outage, and volunteer firefighters were stationed at the fire halls and communicated with the Law Enforcement Center by radio. WTIP Radio informed citizens to call their local fire station rather than 911 in case of emergency. Ham radio operators were stationed at North Shore Hospital so they could call outside the county for help as needed.
Minnesota Qwest President John Stanoch said at an April 27, 2010 meeting of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, “We’re not interested in a ‘blame game.’ Whatever happened in Duluth is very unusual.”
CenturyLink is in the process of acquiring Qwest.
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