While residents of northern Texas county and southern Pulaski County escaped the storm on April 1 with minor damage compared to their neighbors in western and northern counties, they were left with an unexpected and continuing dangerous impact—no cell phone coverage.
As Monday night’s storm rolled through, residents in Palace, Evening Shade, Roby and Plato suddenly found their phones with no bars, displaying an SOS message in the upper corner of their screens.
Initial calls made to AT&T resulted in news that it would be repaired around the evening of April 5, then April 6 and then by the beginning of the following week on April 8. Each day came and went without a fix. Some affected residents are being told “there’s no outage” or “it’s your device” only to drive to the AT&T store in St. Robert or Lebanon and discover their phones are working just fine in another town. Residents report “no signal” until they reach the airport on Fort Leonard Wood, which is several miles south of Roby, or east of the Lebanon area.
It’s not just cell phones that are affected by the outage. Pet trackers are not working outside of home Wi-Fi zones, medical devices connecting to external Wi-Fi are not functioning, mobile hotspots are out, and teleworkers are having to drive to Fort Leonard Wood to get their work computers to sync.
The outage is of particular concern when it comes to medical emergencies. On Feb. 1, Fort Leonard Wood closed the south gate from the hours of 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. The only way to get the gate open is with a 911 call and residents are concerned about how they can get the gate open if they can’t call 911. Landlines are rare and most people rely on cell phone service to be able to make a call to emergency services. In addition, emergency contacts and caregivers who receive notifications for family members through life alert are not able to receive notifications if they are not in a Wi-Fi calling zone or in another town with coverage.
On April 10, a customer service representative from AT&T provided an update. They noted that the microwave on top of the Evening Shade tower was fried during the storm on April 1 and has not been repaired yet because it requires a crane to do the work. They claim that a crane is scheduled to arrive on Thursday, April 11 and service is estimated to be restored by April 12. However, residents are still concerned because they were also told last week that service would be restored and they are on their tenth day with no coverage.
Residents are concerned about the lack of transparency, coordination and timely repair from AT&T and frustrated with those who have the ability to get updates for the community. Currently, there has been no response from Fort Leonard Wood on what actions residents in southern Pulaski and northern Texas county should take if they are unable to call 911 and need to get through the south gate when it is closed.
Extremely frustrating, I moved to this location because 5G and full bars for a rural area is wonderful to have to reach the outside world. AT&T has failed us miserably! If corporate would only now the way they are treating their customers!