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Verizon installation irks Burke
For the past two months, contractors with Verizon have been laying thousands of feet of fiber optic cable for its new FiOS service in the Burke Centre communities. In the process, residents say, workers have damaged water and electrical mains, torn up front yards and, in one case, accidentally caused a house fire.On March 20, a worker under contract to Verizon to dig for the cables struck an electrical line with a backhoe, causing a power surge in a townhouse on Oak Thrush Court. The power surge resulted in a fire and an estimated $40,000 in damages. No one was at home during the fire.
Verizon maintains that the fault was not with the contractor who ignited the fire, but with the locating company that incorrectly outlined the utility mains.
Many residents have come home to long sections of their lawns dug up. The residents claim they never received a warning from Verizon, even though the company is supposed to put notices on the doors of affected homes.
Many of those same residents complain of spending hours on the telephone and leaving messages with contractors and Verizon, only to receive no calls back nor any help at all.
Residents complain that the easements provided by the contractor are ineligible, that some contractors could not read them and that green utility boxes are now located in residents' front yards.
"I realize Verizon has a right to put the lines in, but they could be a little nicer to the community," said Ed Beck, a 25-year resident of Burke Centre, whose yard was damaged by digging crews.
"We just feel like we've been treated rather poorly," said KG Heflin, who says his water pressure hasn't returned to normal and his yard was damaged after contractors cut a water main along his street.
Not long after the water line was hit, diggers damaged an electrical main, cutting power to streetlights along Heflin's street.
"Throughout this construction, our goal is to notify customers in advance, to do the work as safely as possible and to restore what we have damaged. We're doing a solid job of it, but we always recognize that there's room for improvement, and we're committed to doing that," said Verizon spokesman Harry Mitchell in an e-mailed statement.
Braddock District Supervisor Sharon Bulova (D) has written a letter to the Office of Consumer Affairs expressing her concern after receiving numerous complaints from residents, and Burke Conservancy Executive Director Patrick Gloyd has been in talks with Verizon in the hope that "this kind of thing won't continue to happen," he said.
But, when Verizon is laying 100,000 linear feet of cable in the course of two months, these things tend to happen, Gloyd said.
"They admitted as much to us, saying, 'We're going to hit power lines, going to hit water lines, because utilities are not always correctly marked,'” Gloyd said. "Whenever there is a major infrastructure rebuild like this, there are problems.”
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