It's happened twice now in recent weeks. Iroquois County's emergency 9-1-1 service was taken out of service by copper thieves, cutting and stealing fiber-optic lines.

It happened again early Friday morning. The Donovan 4-8-6 telephone exchange was out of service until the Frontier phone company crews could make repairs. A line was cut around 2:30 am.

Last month, much of Iroquois County went without phones and access to 9-1-1 service for about 20 hours when thieves cut into a fiber-optic line near Papineau. That also started at 2:30 am.

AT&T repair crews were forced to make repairs in the earlier incident. Neither Frontier nor AT&T officials have addressed the matter openly.

Local Iroquois County officials, including emergency responders are expressing concern about the issue. The cut lines and elimination of service have far-reaching effects, other than just the local phone service.

94.1 WGFA