About 300 AT&T customers have been left without service since last week after a heavy storm caused water damage to several cable lines near San Mateo and San Bruno avenues.
Initially, about 400 residential and commercial customers were without service. But AT&T crews were able to restore service to 100 of those customers.
Still, a number of residents and business owners say they have been left in the dark about when their service would be fully restored.
The service outage was caused some time Wednesday when a manhole at the intersection flooded, and several underground copper cables were damaged with water, said an AT&T spokesman.
Crews were able to dry out some of the cables, but not others, and they have begun replacing the damaged lines with new ones, said spokesman John Britton.
One cable is expected to be put back in service by 7 a.m. on Tuesday and another restored by Wednesday, Britton said.
It is not clear what caused the flooding, but Britton said the company will conduct an investigation into what happened after service has been fully restored.
“We are aware of the issue and working to restore all service as quickly as possible,” he said.
For those who have been left without service since last week, some are growing impatient.
A number of businesses along San Mateo Avenue haven’t been able to take credit cards, including , and .
Owners such as Nina Panyaem of Thai Nakom said it has been frustrating because AT&T told her that service would be restored late last week. After that didn’t happen, she hasn’t been able to get any more answers from the company, even after calling its customer service number.
“I called them and they didn’t give me a good answer,” Panyaem said. Now the restaurant has to put up “Cash Only” signs to warn customers not to pay with their credit cards.
Klara Fabry, the city’s public services director, said a number of residents from San Mateo Avenue to Seventh Avenue have been affected as well.
Until AT&T service is fully restored, Britton said that customers could forward their home phone numbers to their cell phones if phone service is still down. If customers have more questions, he said they can call 800-288-2020.
