A severe storm on July 6 left several residences in Bakers Narrows Provincial Park without landline telephone service for more than two weeks.
It was the evening of July 23 when phone service was restored to Jane Robillard’s house at Bakers Narrows. Robillard lives in an area that she described as primarily seniors.
“A lot of them are seniors who have lived their entire life in Flin Flon and have always had a cottage, or visited the family cottage for years and planned on retiring there,” said Robillard.
Cell phone service is spotty at Bakers Narrows. Robillard said in her area, cell phones don’t have signal unless homeowners purchase a booster for their properties.
“A number of people out there count on having a telephone,” said Robillard.
“If you have to call an ambulance, then that presents a safety issue.”
The storm also downed many trees in the area, and though there are three ways to reach Highway 10 from Robillard’s property, all of them were blocked by fallen trees for some time.
Robillard described how phone lines in her area were downed, and while hydro was quickly restored to the area, lines remained fallen in back lanes for weeks.
“People were not upset that the phone was out for two or three days, because the hydro crews were there working like crazy, but 16 days?”
Dana Dadson, who lives at Bakers Narrows, made a report to Bell MTS regarding the service interruption. Dadson carries a cell phone and has a booster. He estimated it was about a week after the service went down that he made the report.
“For me it wasn’t as critical as it was for some of my neighbours,” said Dadson, who added his service was restored by July 24.
The Reminder contacted Bell MTS to ask why it took up to two weeks after the initial service disruption to restore service to the area, as well as how its service disruption reporting process worked.
Andrew Parkinson, senior manager of communications with Bell MTS provided a statement via e-mail.
“A severe storm earlier this month caused extensive damage to some telephone lines in the Bakers Narrows area,” reads the statement.
“Our crews worked as quickly as possible to repair the extensive damage in the area. All repairs have been completed and service has been restored for the 18 customers impacted. Cell service in the area was not affected.”
When pressed for further details, Parkinson did not provide more information.
Bell MTS is the only landline service provider for Bakers Narrows.
