Dive Brief:
- A flood in the building of a service provider shut down phone service to at least two Boston hospitals on Monday.
- The flood, which happened at Winstream, a Fortune 500 communications company, caused outages for 3,200 businesses and almost 7,000 homes.
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Tufts Medical Center were included in the outage, as were local police and fire departments. None of the affected businesses could receive incoming calls.
Dive Insight:
The flood was caused by a broken city water valve that runs under Windstream's headquarters. When the valve broke, the basement flooded, which prompted authorities to shut off the building's electricity. Services continued on battery backup for about four hours, at which time all systems went down.
Both hospitals were able to set up alternate phone lines, which allowed people to reach the facilities. A spokeswoman for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center told The Boston Globe the loss of phone service caused no issues and “business went as usual.”
Although this is an unusual case, it's a good idea to develop a contingency plan for loss of phone service if you don't already have one. If you do have a plan, you might want to make sure employees have been properly trained.