Phone lines down in Adam's Cove days after raging wildfire

Small Point-Adam's Cove-Blackhead-Broad Cove is without phone services days after a wildfire destroyed homes and forced residents to flee the Conception Bay North community.

The town is serviced by Bell. Councillor Sue Rose says the company "seems to not give two hoots" about residents of the area, which had no cell service, even before losing landline access on Saturday.

"You have to be connected to your house to use your cell phone," Rose told CBC News. "You can't step outside your door and go on a walk and feel safe. If something happened … you're not going to have service."

She added that one of her friends took it upon herself to rescue her sister from the raging fire this week because she had no way of communicating with her.

"She finally got on the quad and went through fire to get her," said Rose. She said the pair is lucky to be alive.

For their part, a Bell representative told the town late Saturday morning that the company is sending out a technician "immediately." 

In the meantime the outage is also affecting pagers and landlines at the North Shore Volunteer Fire Department, according to firefighter Jim King.

The fire is contained and the state of emergency has been lifted, but firefighters are still dealing with hot spots. 

King says there is currently no way to directly contact the fire department, and volunteers are relying on cell phones — with spotty connection — and word of mouth. 

"Everything is under control here with the fires," he said. "But now, we've got 25 in our department … and there's no way to contact them."

CBC News does not know the source of the outage, and has asked Bell for a response.

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