Qwest officials say 9-1-1 service is down in several western Iowa communities. Nancy DeVinay-McNeley a spokeswoman for Qwest, says the company became aware of the problem at about 9:30 this morning. DeVinay-McNeley says Qwest customers in Carroll cannot dial out on long distance or reach an emergency operator by dialing 9-1-1 right now. She says folks in Carroll can 712-792-3536 to reach emergency services. DeVinay-McNeley says she doesn’t yet have an alternate number to call if there’s an emergency. She says Qwest hasn’t identified what the problem is yet, and she does not know when the lines will be fixed. The problem reportedly includes Harlan and Atlantic, and 9-1-1 service is also out in those communities. A local Iowa phone company’s also feeling the effects, and Iowa Telecom spokesman Dan Enness says the stormy weather may be behind it. A washout of cable near Oakland is affecting Telecom’s customers, shutting down some long-distance and internet service and causing 911 calls to be rerouted. Iowa Telecom serves about 400-thousand customers in the state and Eness says 14-thousand lines may be affected by the outage. No word on when repairs may be done.
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