Thousands of Santa Clara, San Benito, and Santa Cruz county residents are currently without phone service this morning. They can't even call 911 in case of an emergency. Why? Because of an old, AT&T-owned fiber optic line (leased out to Verizon) that went bust. "Verizon is completely down; other carriers are intermittent at best," said Zachary DeVine, a Santa Clara County spokesman. If residents of Morgan Hill, Gilroy, San Martin and Santa Cruz County cannot make a call to 911, officials "are urging people to go to their nearest fire or police department or local hospital or flag down an emergency vehicle."

Update: Outage is due to do the work of vandals. According to SFGate, they "cut fiber-optic cable lines belonging to AT&T and Sprint at two locations early today, knocking out landline and cellular phone service to thousands of residential customers and businesses in southern Santa Clara County, in Santa Cruz and San Benito counties and along the Peninsula." No arrests have been made.

No word on when phone service would be restored.