Andrews loses phone service

About 6,000 Andrews-area residents lost their phone service for more than three hours Wednesday afternoon when an AT&T fiber cable was cut somewhere in Midland, Windstream Communications spokesman David Avery said.

Avery said the customers with Windstream, which handles the landline services for all of Andrews, were isolated at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday after the cable was cut, meaning they were able to call each other inside the town but out-of-town calls and Internet services were not available until the line was repaired by 7 p.m. 9-1-1 calls were also affected.

Avery deferred to AT&T for details on what happened to the fiber line. The AT&T’s media office was closed Wednesday evening and no one could be reached for comment.

Avery said the phone lines in Andrews are connected to the AT&T network in Midland, which acts as a hub for the services.

A dispatcher at the Andrews County Sheriffs Office said all 9-1-1 calls were routed through Ector County and no calls were missed during the outage.

The Midland County Sheriff Office reported no 9-1-1 service disruptions.