Massive Communications Outage Reported In Southern New Mexico

Fiber lines cuts in two locations has affected a large portion of southern New Mexico. The outage is affecting phone service, 911 and Internet service.

According to a Qwest spokesman, the fiber cuts occurred at Tijeras and Socorro, New Mexico by a third party. Crews are at the scene and everything should be repaired at the Socorro site within the hour, he said.

The problem is affecting a large portion of southern New Mexico, particularly 911 service in Dona Ana, Otero, Luna, Lincoln and Chaves counties. Chaparral, Sunland Park, Silver City and Hatch also have been affected by the phone outage.

Service is expected to be restored this evening.

Backup 911 service for the affected cities and counties are: Dona Ana County, 575-526-0795 Otero County Sheriff, 575-437-2210 Luna County Sheriff, 575-546-2655 Deming Police, 575-546-3011. Emergency fire and medical backup for city and county are 575-546-2701 Lincoln County Sheriff, 575-648-2385 New Mexico State Police, 575-524-6111