(KLFY)-- Phone users, primarily AT&T customers, in Louisiana may be experiencing difficulties using their mobile devices to get in touch with telephone contacts due to possible issues caused by Hurricane Beryl.
Currently, millions, specifically in the Houston, Texas area, are still without power after the hurricane slammed into Texas. After tearing through parts of Mexico and the Caribbean, leaving behind a deadly path of damage, Beryl made landfall in Texas early Monday as a weakened hurricane that sustained winds of 80 mph. The expected time to restore power for many without in Texas could be days or even longer.
There have been reports of a number of connectivity problems around Louisiana as a result of the hurricane.
"A third-party provider’s service outage may be affecting some of our wireless and home telephone customers' ability to complete calls to certain numbers in the Lafayette area. We’re monitoring the situation and in communication with the third-party as they work to resolve the issue," an AT&T spokesperson said.
"This is affecting other carriers as well as us. This is not an issue with our network," the spokesperson continued.
Louisiana organizations such as the Department of Children and Family Services, have been experiencing problems with their phone lines since Tuesday. Due to the technical issues stopping AT&T phones from reaching their regular toll-free number, an alternative child abuse hotline has been established for Louisiana callers who have failed attempts when it comes to reporting abuse or neglect.
According to their website, “the technical issues appear to stem from a Hurricane Beryl-related power outage affecting Lumen Technologies’ local provider network, which helps route calls to Louisiana’s child abuse hotline. The alternate hotline number is a direct dial number to Seattle, Washington, which then forwards callers to the child abuse hotline. The setup was designed to avoid routing calls through Texas while that state recovers from the storm.”
Anyone who cannot reach the regular toll-free number at 1-855-452-5437, can call the alternate hotline number for reporting child abuse or neglect at 206-792-7510.
Lumen Technologies is a telecommunications company with a network hub located in Houston.
Other entities trying to navigate through this matter include Ochsner Health, who has announced, on their Facebook, many of their phone numbers around the state were having phone issues since Tuesday.
Ochsner Health’s latest update on Wednesday, July 10 at 9 a.m. read, “Ochsner is experiencing intermittent phone issues due to an outage caused by Hurricane Beryl. Many Ochsner phone numbers are unable to receive inbound calls from some telephone providers.”
Other hospitals in the Baton Rouge area such as Woman’s Hospital were also affected by the widespread phone issues. “As a result, we are having problems receiving some inbound phone calls,” the hospital wrote on their Instagram page.
The statewide concern has posed problems for multiple law enforcement agencies as well.
The Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office said people may be struggling to contact them due to Hurricane Beryl; many of the callers having trouble are AT&T customers. The Sheriff’s advised that if those issues occur with reaching them, people can dial 911. If it’s a non-emergency, people can email communications@lpso.net with a name and contact number or use their contact form.
The Iberville Parish Sheriff’s Office also posted on their Facebook page how AT&T customers are also having issues calling some of their phone lines, advising people to call 911 for emergencies. An alternative line has been set up as they said AT&T is trying to restore the services: for non-emergencies, call 225-776-8868 for help.
