Verizon phone service went down just after 11 a.m. Tuesday until about 2 p.m. at eight Clarkstown schools. The schools could not receive outside calls so parents and guardians were told by email to call the central office in the event of an emergency.
Verizon Spokesman John Bonomo said the problem originated at a field or remote terminal in Bardonia.
“Two electrical rectifiers were blown, causing several line and special circuit problems,” he explained in an email. “When we saw this on our monitoring systems we responded immediately, and shortly thereafter service was restored. Total time was about two hours. We are investigating the cause of why the rectifiers blew out.”
The elementary schools that lost service were: Link, New City, West Nyack, Woodglen, Strawtown and Little Tor along with Felix Festa Middle School and Clarkstown South High School. The same buildings had a similar phone service interruption in December.
