[June 16, 2011] Johnsonville phones, 911 service down Wednesday morning Tweet Jun 15, 2011 (The Weekly Observer - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- JOHNSONVILLE, S.C. -- Residents wanting to call out of Johnsonville and Hemingway, or wanting to call in to either one of the towns, are unable to do so right now due to a severed fiber optic line in Kingsburg. Officials hope to have the line repaired by noon. The severed line has affected 911 service as well. For the time being, residents in the 843-386 exchange should call 386-3500 -- the Johnsonville Police in the event of an emergency. Officials are working on rerouting 911 calls to the Johnsonville Police Department until full service can be returned. Jack Collins of Frontier Communications, the company repairing the severed line, said that construction crews working on the expansion of Highway 41/51 in the Kingsburg area accidentally severed the line. "It's just a matter of time before we get it fixed," Collins said. "It'll probably only be two or three hours." Phone service to the 843-386 exchanges in the Johnsonville area is currently limited to that exchange and officials are looking into how and why that is, Tommy Sullivan, Florence County Emergency Management Agency assistant director, said. The same applies to the 843-558 exchanges in Hemingway, which is also limited to communication within that exchange. Sullivan said residents in the exchange can call others in the exchange, but can't call outside the exchange or receive calls from outside the exchange. There is no timeline yet for resolution to the problem, Sullivan said. Stay with scnow.com, The Weekly Observer and WBTW News13 for updates on this story as the information becomes available. To see more of the Weekly Observer or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www2.scnow.com/community/observer/. Copyright (c) 2011, The Weekly Observer, Hemingway, S.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]