2130 Hours, Sunday, Oct. 10, 2010: A vehicle crash east of Seaford earlier today has knocked out telephone service to parts of western Sussex County, though callers can still reach 9-1-1 if dialing from a landline telephone.

The crash along Concord Road at approximately 1:50 p.m. severed a fiber optic cable that Verizon crews are now working to repair. Verizon officials have reported to Sussex County that service is slowly being restored at this hour, with a goal to restore all service by late tonight.

The outage has affected landline service to homes and businesses in the Seaford, Laurel, Bridgeville, Greenwood and Georgetown areas, as well as cell phone service throughout western portions of the county. Callers from landline telephones may hear a dial tone, but will receive a fast busy signal or a recorded message when trying to place a call.

The Sussex County Emergency Operations Center reminds the public that 9-1-1 service is still available from affected landline telephones. Built-in redundancies in the 9-1-1 system allow emergency calls to go through to the County EOC, even in outages such as this. However, 9-1-1 service may not be available to some wireless telephone users.

If you live in the affected areas and have an emergency, please dial 9-1-1 from the nearest landline. Wireless service is spotty.

For the latest information, the public should tune to local media or follow the County Twitter feeds, at twitter.com/sussexde_govt and twitter.com/SussexCtyDE_EOC.

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