Some Jemison and Thorsby residents were without telephone and internet service for more than seven hours Monday.

A fiber optic cable was accidentally severed shortly after 8 a.m. Monday, causing CenturyLink customers in the area to lose service. Perhaps most important was those residents not being able to use the county’s 911 service.

Jemison Police Chief Shane Fulmer said he was concerned that his office wasn’t notified until after 1 p.m. that there was an interruption in service.

“I’m a little bit disturbed about that fact that I didn’t know until then that we didn’t have 911 service,” Fulmer said.

Once he was notified, Fulmer set up a temporary dispatch service out of the police department and had extra patrols around the city.

Service was restored about 4 p.m. Monday.

During the time of interruption, some customers had no dial tone, but most customers could still make local calls. For example, customers with a 688 home phone number exchange could call other 688 numbers but not numbers with a different exchange.