In the early morning, just after midnight on April 9, someone climbed down four manholes in the San Jose, California area and cut underground fiber optic cables. The sabotage led to widespread disruption of phone service -- including tens of thousands of land lines, an undetermined number of cell phones, Internet access and 911 emergency service -- in southern Santa Clara County, as well as in Santa Cruz and San Benito counties. San Jose is the county seat of Santa Clara County. With the infrastructure disabled, local Emergency Management officials called on ham radio operators in their communities to provide back-up communications. According to the San Jose Mercury News, Santa Clara County called a local state of emergency, "but worst-case scenarios were successfully avoided through use of ham radios, door-to-door checks and extra-vigilant patrols."
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