Communications interrupted

A fire in an Eastern Washington University utility tunnel Monday evening knocked out communications to the entire city of Cheney, including the Police Department’s dispatch center.

As reported in a story on the Cheney Free Press website Monday evening, city officials were initially looking at rerouting emergency calls to the Police Department through a communications console at the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office dispatch center. Cheney and fiber optic communication contractor PowerCom crews were successful in restoring direct service for emergency and non-emergency calls to the department thr...