Los Angeles residents are panicking over copper wire thieves knocking out their telephone service and leaving them with the invoice.
Over the previous couple of months, Hacienda Heights neighbors have misplaced most of their landline providers after thieves have been tampering with utility poles and different elements of town infrastructure.Â
Seventy-nine-year-old Michael Weiner informed the Los Angeles Instances that he’s nonetheless been receiving payments from his telephone firm, Frontier Communications, regardless of not with the ability to get a dial tone for six months. Furthermore, he and his neighbors haven’t been receiving updates on repairs.
“Nobody contacted us to tell us. I had wasted so many hours attempting to contact them,” Weiner mentioned. “We stay in a sort of a hearth 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 might 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 informed the neighborhood final month that thieves have been plaguing their repairs.Â
“We have had a lot cable theft we’re operating 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 corporate is providing a $5,000 reward for anybody who gives info that results in capturing the thieves. Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis can be providing a $20,000 reward.
“I’m dedicated to proceed supporting our Sheriff’s Division of its effort to unravel these crimes,” Solis mentioned in a press release.Â
Different residents are nonetheless annoyed with Frontier taking too lengthy to deal with the issue and plenty of nonetheless not having service. 65-year-old resident Diana Arnold informed the Los Angeles Instances that she and her household have now switched providers.
“It is not only a landline, it is a lifeline,” Arnold defined.
Based on the Los Angeles Instances, copper metallic can garner as much as $4 per pound and has been a scorching commodity amongst thieves.Â
Latest thefts additionally precipitated Glen A. Wilson Excessive Faculty to briefly cancel in-person lessons after the ability was lower off final month.
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“The copper wire theft shut down Wilson Excessive Faculty’s electrical, computer systems, and telephone techniques. Copper wire thieves are preying on colleges and stealing 1000’s of {dollars} of helpful materials,” Assistant Superintendent John Lovato of the Hacienda La Puente Unified Faculty District mentioned. “This theft is severely impacting scholar studying and packages.”
Los Angeles isn’t the one metropolis combating copper thieves. In Oakland, metropolis officers eliminated visitors lights at a busy intersection after criminals tampered with the electrical energy within the system.
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