Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!hayes.fai.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: dgriffiths@ebay.sun.com (Darren Griffiths)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed?
Message-ID: <9431@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 2 Jul 90 22:39:25 GMT
Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
Lines: 35
Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 465, Message 3 of 13


In article <59846@bu.edu.bu.edu> telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM
Moderator) writes:

>Word has been reaching us the past few days of the tragic fires
>burning though parts of California, and the most disturbing news is
>that apparently much of the town of Santa Barbara is in ashes. Perhaps
>someone in the area could let us know what the effect has been on
>telco service in that area, and other parts of the state.

Well, I'm not from the area, but I used to be and still have many friends
there so I know a bit about what's going on.

The fire started on highway 151 near Painted Cave.  It burned down the
highway and the San Marcos valley.  A major residential area sits at
the bottom of this valley and was entirely destroyed.  Of the 500+
homes with major damage about 300 were completely destroyed.

As far as phone service is concerned it was incredibly good.  Many of
my friends were evacuated, some for two days and they found out about
the condition of their homes by calling and seeing if the answering
machine picked up.  The night the fire started the phones were out to
the Hidden Valley area for a few hours, this was the area of about
3000 homes close to the path of the fire.  The next day many calls
into the area were greeted with a message "Due to the forest fire in
the area you are calling your call cannot be completed at this time,
please try your call later."  If you called two or three times in a
row you did get through though, also switching to a different long
distance carrier sometimes helped.  AT&T, as is my experience with
most phone service, was the most reliable path into the town


   Cheers,

     --darren