Cut cable puts phones, Internet
out of service in Greenwood area

August 31, 2005

From staff reports


Businesses and residents in Greenwood and the Lakelands experienced problems with Internet, land line and cell phone services for much of Tuesday afternoon.
According to Simple PC’s technical support, a fiber optic cable from Greenville to Columbia was cut, slowing Internet for some customers and affecting the phone service.
Phone calls to Greenwood and Abbeville phone numbers relayed the message that the long distance provider could not access the number dialed. Cell phones gave their users warnings that service was not available.
The problems affected some area grocery stores, pharmacies and other businesses, as customers could not use credit and debit cards because of the lack of a connection to the Internet. At The Blood Connection, clients’ blood donations were processed via cell phone calls to its Greenville office, rather than on the Internet.
People at chain businesses such as grocery stores, Eckerd Drugs, CVS, Verizon and Sprint acknowledged problems, but referred questions to their corporate offices. Calls to these offices were not returned.
The disrupted phone line and Internet access also affected the 911 communications system, Director Tina Stone said.
“The only thing that happened was the phone numbers and addresses didn’t show up on the screen,” she said.
Communicators were still able to receive calls, Stone said.
“We had to confirm their address by asking them to give their address,” she said.
The communications disruption of about three hours did not have a significant effect on operations at Piedmont Tech’s Greenwood campus, college president Lex Walters said.
“I knew something crazy was going on, because people mentioned it,” Walters said, “but it was mainly cell phones.”
Land line phone service did not experience a disruption at the college, he said. Distance learning did not go down because the college owns a separate fiber optics network that connects the satellite campuses to the Greenwood campus.
“We have our own fiber optics and, occasionally, those lines will get cut,” Walters said, “so we empathize with the phone company when that happens.”
At Greenwood District 50, incoming phone service was disrupted, but calls between the district office and schools and school-to-school communication was available.
Some phone outages did occur at Self Regional Medical Center, but other phones lines were available, said hospital spokesman Dan Branyon. Some personnel had to make several tries to make calls go through, he said.
Internet service did go down, and that prevented public access to some information, he said. The nursing department encountered some problems contacting a family about a patient, Branyon said, but the situation eventually was remedied.
At Lander University, Robin Lawrence, director of information technology services, said some students who might have been trying to pay their bills could have been unable to do so. Internet service to off-campus sites was unavailable, Lawrence said, but on-campus service was not disrupted.
Long distance service would not work, but some 800 numbers were available for service, she said. The outage did cause Lander’s distance education program to go down, and cell phone service was disrupted.
“We’re so dependant on it, when we don’t have service it does cause a disruption,” Lawrence said.

Regional editor Vic MacDonald and staff writer Shavonne Potts contributed to this article.

Opinion

The time is now to build new S. C. nuclear plants

August 31, 2005

It has been years since anyone even thought about building a new plant to produce nuclear energy for consumers. However, now that oil prices are so high and are sure to make heating bills go up this winter, nuclear energy is getting much more attention.
It’s encouraging that state-owned Santee-Cooper and energy company SCANA, the company that owns S. C. Electric & Gas, want to jointly build a new nuclear plant to serve their South Carolina customers. Earlier Duke Power also announced it is interested in building another nuclear energy plant to serve its growing market.
It would take about 10 years to get a new plant on line, so time should not be wasted in approving the plans.
There’s another factor, too. European nations – France in particular – have had great success with commercial nuclear power. Come to think of it, so has the U. S. With oil prices high and crude oil supplies being subject to a variety of negative influences, nuclear energy offers considerable relief. We’d be foolish not to exploit the opportunities we have.

Editorial expression in this feature represents our own views.
Opinions are limited to this page.

Obituaries

Jean Harbin

Jean Elizabeth Burnett Harbin, 55, of 404 Morgan Ave., died Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005 at Hospice House.
Services will be announced by Blyth Funeral Home & Cremation Services.

Lillie Smith

GREENWOOD — Lillie Elizabeth Thomas Smith, 83, formerly of Florida Avenue, widow of Willie Lee Smith, died Tuesday, August 30, 2005 at Oakmont East Nursing Center in Greenville.
Born in Whitmire, she was a daughter of the late Joe and Mollie Johnson Thomas. She was retired from Greenwood Mills and was of the Pentecostal Holiness faith.
She was preceded in death by two sisters, Virgie Thomas Yarborough and Della Thomas Davis and two brothers, Jack Thomas and Franklin Thomas. Surviving is a daughter, two grandchildren; two great grand-children and a niece, Mary Brooks of Simpsonville.
Services will be at 2 p.m. Thursday at the Harley Funeral Home Chapel with burial following in Greenwood Memo-rial Gardens,
The family will receive friends at the funeral home on Thursday from 1 - 2 p.m.
Memorials may be made to Heartland Hospice Services, 421 SE Main Street, Simpsonville, SC 29681, Online condolences may be sent to the family by visiting www.harleyfuneralhome.com
PAID OBITUARY