EGN NEWS DESK
Los Angeles residents are panicking over copper wire thieves knocking out their telephone service and leaving them with the invoice.
Over the previous few months, Hacienda Heights neighbors have misplaced most of their landline providers after thieves have been tampering with utility poles and different components of town infrastructure.
Seventy-nine-year-old Michael Weiner instructed the Los Angeles Times that he’s nonetheless been receiving payments from his telephone firm, Frontier Communications, regardless of not having the ability to get a dial tone for six months. Moreover, he and his neighbors haven’t been receiving updates on repairs.
“No one contacted us to tell us. I had wasted so many hours making an attempt to contact them,” Weiner mentioned. “We stay in a form of a fireplace zone, so we’re all the time involved about emergencies. We’re senior residents. If there is a well being emergency between my spouse and myself, it could possibly be an issue if we won’t make a telephone name.”
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Frontier Communications reported restoring some telephone providers, although Frontier’s vp of exterior affairs Doug McAllister instructed the neighborhood final month that thieves have been plaguing their repairs.
“We’ve had a lot cable theft we’re working out of copper,” McAllister mentioned. “What occurs is after we get it shipped to us, we put it up, we flip our backs and it is gone once more.”
The firm is providing a $5,000 reward for anybody who offers info that results in capturing the thieves. Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis can also be providing a $20,000 reward.
“I’m dedicated to proceed supporting our Sheriff’s Department of its effort to resolve these crimes,” Solis mentioned in an announcement.
Several Hacienda Heights residents reported their landlines being out for months. (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto by way of Getty Images)
Other residents are nonetheless annoyed with Frontier taking too lengthy to handle the issue and plenty of nonetheless not having service. 65-year-old resident Diana Arnold instructed the Los Angeles Times that she and her household have now switched providers.
“It’s not only a landline, it is a lifeline,” Arnold defined.
According to the Los Angeles Times, copper metallic can garner as much as $4 per pound and has been a sizzling commodity amongst thieves.
Recent thefts additionally precipitated Glen A. Wilson High School to briefly cancel in-person lessons after the ability was reduce off final month.
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“The copper wire theft shut down Wilson High School’s electrical, computer systems, and telephone techniques. Copper wire thieves are preying on faculties and stealing hundreds of {dollars} of invaluable materials,” Assistant Superintendent John Lovato of the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District mentioned. “This theft is severely impacting pupil studying and packages.”
Frontier Communications is providing a reward for serving to the seize of copper wire thieves. (Photo by Bob Riha, Jr./Getty Images)
Los Angeles isn’t the one metropolis battling copper thieves. In Oakland, metropolis officers eliminated site visitors lights at a busy intersection after criminals tampered with the electrical energy within the system.
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