A windstorm over the weekend in Attica has had some lingering effects.
When a windstorm over the weekend blew part of the Williams Opera House in downtown Attica in, the village was forced to temporarily declare the building unsafe for occupancy and cut off all the utilities. But the problems didn’t end there.
“We noticed that the wireless internet was acting up," Attica Police Chief Dean Hendershott said. "We rely on wireless internet for the majority of our function here when it comes to the computers.”
The Attica Police Department is just down the road from the Opera House, and Chief Hendershott says come Monday, they were having issues with their cell service, internet, and laptops in the patrol cars.
“I’m just doing a quick size up and looking at the building, and when I looked up I saw the big white tower and said, ‘Yep, there’s the problem,’” Hendershott said.
When the village shut down power to the Opera House, it also shut power down to Verizon’s network equipment on top of the building. Meaning until a solution is found, the police department is going old school.
“They basically rely on the two-way radio system. Whereas with the computers in the car, they can generate a lot of the information, get complaints sent to them over [Computer Assisted Dispatch] system, and for running data for vehicles,” Hendershott said.
Though this isn’t too much of an issue for the veteran chief.
“I can handwrite a ticket faster than I can put it on the computer. For me, it’s just old hand. For the new guys, sometimes they struggle,” Hendershott said.
Regardless, Chief Hendershott says there’s nothing for residents to worry about.
“Technology has made it that information is almost instantaneous, now there’s a little delay there," Hendershott said. "But again, there’s no impact on public safety or how we do our job, we just do it a little differently now.”
Verizon says it’s working with the village to bring additional network equipment to the area, but there’s no timeline for a fix. In the meantime, the company recommends affected customers enable Wi-Fi calling on their phones.