BT confirm restoration of some telephone services – Skye and Western Isles
Police have received reports from BT that they have managed to restore a large percentage of services in the areas affected by an earlier loss of landlines.
There is still no landline or 999 coverage in Skeabost, Ardvasar, Killilan and Glenshiel areas at this time and reports have just been received there is a total loss of service in Castlebay, Barra.
Full service has been restored in Scalpay, Uig (Skye), Glendale and Balallan, although broadband service is still not available.
At this time the outage in Barra is being dealt with as part of the major incident response, however it is not known if it is connected to the issue on the mainland.
Broadband outages are causing disruption to around 7000 customers in the Skye and Western Isles areas and BT say they are working hard to address these issues.
NHS Highland say contingency plans have been put in place. They are working closely with all partner agencies to ensure vulnerable patients are being taken care of.
Police say they have resources within the affected communities and will continue to be responsive to calls for service. They are working closely with multi-agency partners.
For residents in Barra members of the public should visit the local Police station in the event of an emergency.
In addition anyone requiring emergency services attention in the areas still affected can contact local authority roads employees who still have access to comms and will alert any emergencies to the relevant blue light services.
The officer in charge of the incident, Superintendent John McDonald said: “We are treating the loss of phone services as a major incident and are working closely with our multi-agency partners to effectively deal with the incident as quickly as possible.
“Highland Council and Western Isles Council have both put in place resources to provide additional contact through their mobile patrol work forces.
“Police are currently investigating the circumstances surrounding the theft/damage of cable in the Stromeferry/Lochcarron area.
“Officers are working with BT to establish the extent of the impact in these communities and the cost of the damage.
“Anyone who witnessed any suspicious activity in this area in the past 24 hours is urged to contact Police on 01478 612888 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.”
BT say the incident has impacted on broadband and around 7000 customers across the North-west Highlands have lost service. Service to some mobile operators may also be affected.
BT say they face a major engineering challenge to restore service to the affected communities and broadband users.
A spokesman for BT said: “The damage to the fibre cable was obviously caused at low tide at Strathcarron and when we were able to locate it, the tide had turned and the damaged area was 20 metres out into the loch.
“The next low tide is not until 2pm when we will carry out an assessment of the damage.”
“We are continuing to investigate all our options, including replacing the entire 1000 metres of cable and we have alerted divers at our marine unit in Plymouth.”
Highland Council added that one impact of the landline outage is that bank ATMs have been affected.
Anyone travelling to Skye and Lochalsh over the next couple of days is advised to take cash with them as they may experience difficulty in obtaining money from the machines.