911 emergency service is again available to Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo County residents after a nearly 24-hour outage caused by an accidentally cut fiber optics line.
The outage happened at around 9:30 Tuesday morning. It impacted phone service offered by some major carriers. People were still able to make calls and use dial-in numbers to call first responders, but the 911 function was knocked out of service. The outage also disrupted service to the Santa Barbara Airport control tower, which led to dozens of flights being cancelled or delayed Tuesday and early Wednesday.
Crews worked through the night to repair the fiber line. Service was restored Wednesday morning, with 911 service back online, and normal operations resuming at Santa Barbara Airport. The outage also impacted SLO County Airport because the Santa Barbara Airport tower provides information on its air traffic.
