SARASOTA, FL (WWSB) - "Verizon cannot complete your call at this time, and I waited ten minutes and I tried it again and I tried it again and that didn't work," said Sarasota resident Debbie Tschirhart.
That was what thousands of Verizon customers were experiencing Thursday night. For Tschirhart and many others it was a little frustrating but she says she was able to work around it.
"I think that's a problem for a lot of people because a lot of people only use their cell phone these days," says Tschirhart. "It's not that we're old fashioned but we do keep a landline in the house just for that purpose."
Riverview High School Senior Sophia Winiecki relies heavily on her cell phone. This widespread Verizon outage did have an impact for her and her friends.
"It was kind of frustrating just because I was trying to communicate with my friends and also a club that I'm in because I'm an officer for," said Winiecki. "So I wasn't able to do anything on my phone."
It's not known exactly what happened but Verizon did issue this statement. "Verizon Wireless experienced interruption in service in the Tampa Bay area last night. Engineers were able to identify and resolve the issue and service was restored by 2:45am this morning."
It's something that did impact 911 centers on the Suncoast.
The Sarasota County Sheriff's Office informed people through Facebook and twitter that they were unable to receive or dial out to any Verizon users. Folks were being encouraged to use a landline or another carrier.
Jake Saur who oversees Manatee County's 911 center says he did notice a decrease in 911 calls during the outage because 70 percent of their calls come in via cell phones. In addition to having a landline, he shares this bit of advice.
"If they have Wi-Fi they can always turn on Wi-Fi calling through their phone, their smartphone and that would enable them to call 911 as well," said Saur.
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