Manhattan FDNY Alarm Boxes Back Up And Running

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- FDNY alarm boxes were all back up and running in Manhattan early Wednesday, after an infrastructure failure shut them down.

New York City officials sent an alert out at around 4 p.m. Tuesday notifying residents of an infrastructure failure that caused the service outage.

Verizon said Tuesday night that it had to replace its copper wire with fiber to restore the service, 1010 WINS reported.

"We were very close to completing that project when the copper network failed," Verizon spokesman Phil Santoro told WCBS 880's Alex Silverman Tuesday night.

The FDNY said only a tiny percentage of calls come from the boxes, and about 90 percent of the ones that do are false alarms.

The past two mayors tried to remove the boxes to save money, but a federal judge said that would discriminate against deaf people.

You May Also Be Interested In These Stories

In:
• Verizon
• FDNY