Fiber break in Morgan Hill – February 2021
by Heatherly Takeuchi, N6HKT
Jennifer Ponce, KJ6EST, the OEM Manager for the city of Morgan Hill, CA, was sitting at her desk early on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2021, when the internet went out. Internet interruptions are not common in Morgan Hill, but they are not unheard of either. She went down the hallway to investigate and soon realized the whole Morgan Hill Police Department building was affected.
The Police Chief of Morgan Hill, Shane Palsgrove, quickly called everyone into the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in the building. This included the city Public Information Officer, the city manager, the Fire Chief, and Woody Salyer, K6WWS, the Morgan Hill Emergency Coordinator.
Everyone tried calling 9-1-1. Spectrum was the internet provider for the city, which was still down. ATT could make 9-1-1 calls. Text911, a phone app, also didn’t work.
Someone from the city got Spectrum on the phone and started to work the problem from that direction.
The 9-1-1 Dispatch Center was rerouted to County Communications. Fire gets their calls from County Comms anyway.
A WhatsApp group was created for all the city department leaders to communicate. It gives group members an encrypted way to send files and messages.
The fire chief decided the engines should stay in their stations as people might go there for information on the outage while Morgan Hill Police went out into the city to check coverage.
At this point, they suspected that the outage might be malicious. When that is the case, the agency contacts county OES, who contacts State OES, who notifies the Terrorist Warning Center.
To help get information out to the public as quickly as possible, the city deployed their electronic sign stating an outage affecting 9-1-1 service. The info was also posted on Facebook and Nextdoor.
Morgan Hill also reached out to San Jose, and San Martin to find out if they were affected; they weren’t.
Jennifer sent out a Reverse 911 (Blackboard) and WEA alerts. Over 30,000 people got these messages.
An officer noticed a construction site in the North part of Morgan Hill that might have been the source of the problem.
Another officer on the southside found a construction site and they said they had cut into a fiber line which was caught on their equipment. The fiber lines were stretched, twisted and finally snapped.
So, by the end of the day, they knew it was not a malicious attack, Spectrum was working on restoring service, and the public had ways to get emergency services. The department leaders went home for the night and the IT team was able to keep them up to date with WhatsApp.
During the PG&E Public Safety Power Shutdowns from 2019 and 2020, Morgan Hill started a phone number for information which the public can call for information, since we have learned, the internet may not be available.
In 2009 during the infamous Cable Cut, nine hams went out in the field with officers and as well as other major areas buildings like hospitals and the blood bank. Now, even 12 years later, when Morgan Hill has any major events or trainings, the city officials know to call the Morgan Hill EC so ham resources are available at hand.
True, hams were not used in this particular emergency; yet they were ready if needed.
