Technicians are working to restore phone service to Oelwein, Calmar and surrounding areas.

A CenturyLink spokeswoman says the network outage is currently impacting 911 services in both communities and some long-distance calls are getting a busy signal. Cell phone service is working and people in Calmar are encouraged to use their cell phones to dial 911 while those in Oelwein should dial 319-283-4311 to reach the police department.

According to Marketing Development Manager Nancy DeVinay-McNeley, the outage was caused by an unrelated party that accidentally cut the fiber in the Independence area today (Monday, March 31, 2014).

“CenturyLink’s priorities are customer safety and restoring communications,” DeVinay-McNeley said. “We appreciate our customers’ patience while we work to resolve this issue.”

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