After a lightning strike: residents without a phone for eight weeks - dramatic consequences for retired couple

An entire street in Erding has not had a phone for eight weeks.

The consequences for the residents are sometimes dramatic.

Erding - On the night of July 24th, a violent storm raged over Erding.

At midnight, lightning struck a mighty tree in the park settlement and literally split it.

As a result, a telephone line that supplies the entire Troppauer Strasse failed.

The residents have had dead lines since then.

Eight weeks later, Deutsche Telekom is finally in the process of repairing the cable.

After a violent storm in Erding: Telephone line dead for weeks

The completely broken tree on the corner of Liegnitzer Strasse and Troppauer Strasse was a magnet for the residents of the park settlement for days.

The violence of nature could be admired impressively there.

The trunk and branches had damaged not only the adjoining house, but also the telephone line.

Dieter Ernst lives one house further.

He was lucky that Telekom quickly set up an emergency supply for him with a temporary overhead line.

The residents of the corner house were on vacation after the storm, the Telekom did not come to the property and therefore could not set up a longer emergency supply.

Ernst reports that the asphalt was milled up immediately after the devastating storm.

“After that, nothing happened.” A call to Telekom revealed that there were problems with the civil engineering permit.

He considers this justification to be advanced.

"We haven't seen any workers there since then."

Telecom problem in Erding: retirees have to move to hospital because of a blind woman

For the residents of Troppauer Straße, this means: Since July 24th, they can only make calls with their mobile phones.

But not everyone has that - with sometimes dramatic consequences.

Ernst reports on an elderly couple, both over 80, in the neighborhood.

The woman is blind, the man would have had to go to hospital for treatment.

But he had to postpone that, according to Ernst, because he didn't want to leave his wife alone without being able to be reached by telephone.

Otherwise she would have been helpless.

Ernst was lucky in the accident, he can make calls again, he had the broken Internet connection repaired and replaced the Fritzbox.

The electrical energy of the lightning had destroyed them.

That night the power went out in parts of the settlement.

Lightning strikes the telephone line paralyzed: residents pissed off at Telecom

Ernst is pissed off at Telekom that it has been letting its customers down for eight weeks and that call center employees have reacted increasingly puffy to the complaints.

Our newspaper asked the telecommunications giant. Its spokesman Peter Kespohl explains that the damage was learned on July 26, two days later. His diagnosis: "The cause of the malfunction is multiple cable damage and the resulting short circuits due to lightning strikes and water ingress in various areas of the cable."

Suddenly things start moving.

Two days after our newspaper called, Telekom employees appear and investigate the damage in the ground.

Kespohl speaks of working on a cable joint in order to isolate further errors.

"If necessary, civil engineering work is then necessary again at the points behind," said the spokesman.

Telephone line in Erding dead for weeks: Telekom expresses itself

It is a matter of "technically very complex measures".

That is why rectification and debugging would take so long.

He could not give any information as to when the residents of Troppauer Strasse will finally be able to call the fixed network again.

After all, they are happy that something is happening there.

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