Cable TV restored for villagers
Line pulled down by scissorjack, owner says
April Hudson
Northern News Services
Thursday, September 24, 2015
LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON
Cable TV services are back in Fort Simpson after a week of being out of service.
Ivan Simons scales a pole with the aid of a Genie articulating boom while repairing cable lines for the third time in a week. - April Hudson/NNSL photo
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Senga Services announced on Sept. 13 the company's cable lines had been damaged by a hit-and-run accident.
On Sept. 17, owner Ivan Simons was out on 100 Street fixing the lines with the help of an articulating boom.
Simons said the lines were pulled down for the third time in a week by an extended scissorjack. The first two times, lines were taken down by a high vehicle and by wind.
This time, the scissorjack pulled down the line between the recreation centre and the high school. Simons said the person responsible then tried to fix their error by zip-tying the fallen line to another line that had not been pulled down.
In the process, they blew out a transformer further down the line, turning a half-hour job into a full afternoon of work.
Simons' daughter Jennifer was on-hand helping him with repairs.
"Every year, these sorts of things cost us between $20,000 and $30,000," she said.
Simons agreed the costs are high and said he has previously asked the village to bear some of the costs for repairing the lines, which it has declined to do.
The village discussed the issue at a Sept. 14 committee of the whole meeting. According to meeting minutes, at that time the village decided despite the fact there are no maximum height signs in the area, the responsibility for repairs falls on Simons and his company, since the village "does not own or maintain (Simons') cable lines."
The village has no plans to erect maximum height signs near the lines.
Senga Services will be issuing credit on all accounts affected by the outage, according to the company.
