By Beth Christian Broschart
The Parsons Advocate
PARSONS – During the last Tucker County Commission meeting inquiries were made about what the Tucker County Commission could do regarding telephone outages in the county. Roxanne Tuesing, Tucker County Senior Center Director said lots of the outages affect those in the St. George and Leadmine area. Many of the customers are seniors and do not have a cell phone or internet service and Tuesing said their landlines were their only connection to others and to emergency services. She said the phone service experiencing the outages is Frontier Communication.
Hinkle said she talked to E911 Director Darla Stemple.
“First of all, I have been on the Commission for four years and this is the first situation that has come to our attention. If this occurred prior to this event, it has not been brought to anyone’s attention.”
She said the plan at this point is to respond as quickly and efficiently as we can to get to the bottom of why this interruption of service is happening.
“That is why we reached out to Eric (Feaster) and he has been addressing those concerns,” she said. “Going forward I would say it is almost situational. It is really challenging to come up with a blanket plan that would address every situation.”
Hinkle said she has reached out to Feaster to see if he has any recommendations for a backup plan going forward.
“I asked him if the customers who were affected would receive a reduction in their rate but I do not have the answer yet,” Hinkle said. “I know Eric is very busy but he is very responsive. I give him credit for the quick turnaround time. Anytime I have called them, he has been very responsive.”
Hinkle said the outage experienced in Tucker County had nothing to do with the issues in Grant County.
“I don’t know what the issues are in Grant County, but Eric said he was sure this was a short-term, one time situation and he doesn’t see this being a long term problem. I think it would be beneficial for you to call him.”
Calls to Feaster last week by the Parsons Advocate have not been returned as of press time.
In an email on Oct. 4 to Hinkle from Feaster he wrote, “Please feel free to share my cell phone. I encourage customers to contact me with issues. My teams and I are here to help. I travel a lot so I encourage customers with texting capability to shoot me a text with name, number, and issue. Again, we are here to help so please encourage customers to reach out to us locally. We can and will take care of creating a ticket for them.”
The number Feaster provided is 304-703-9082.
Hinkle said along with contacting Frontier, Commission members spoke with state elected officials regarding this situation.
“We try to be as responsive as we can be,” she said. “We cannot be everywhere, every time at every place. It’s helpful to us when somebody brings the issue to us. If we can do anything, we certainly will.”
In an unrelated note, Hinkle said she had been contacted by residents with concerns over the fires at Dolly Sods.
“I reached out to Troy Watsky from the Forest Service to see if he could report at the next Commission meeting. He is unable to but he is providing me with information that I will report out for him,” Hinkle said.