CRANBERRY ISLES – Local selectmen on Tuesday declared a public safety emergency as one home after another lost telephone service because of a corroded main phone cable running from Southwest Harbor to the islands.

People who are unable to reach friends or relatives on Great or Little Cranberry islands can call the Mount Desert Police Department, which will send dispatches over the VHF radio Channel 72, First Selectman Richard Beal said Tuesday.

Lobstermen and other fishermen, as well as numerous year-round residents and businesspeople keep a VHF radio in their boats or homes and communicate that way in storms or other emergencies.

Verizon, which owns the cable, dispatched a technician Tuesday afternoon, but it remained uncertain how long it would take to fix the problem.

“If that’s the submarine line, that’s not going to be a quick fix,” Phillip Lindley, spokesman for the Maine Public Utilities Commission, said.

A spokesman for Verizon said a team of service technicians would assess the cable at low tide this morning. An initial assessment concluded that Hurricane Juan, on its way up the Atlantic this week, “rather severely” pounded the main cable up against the rocky shore, said Verizon spokesman Peter Reilly.

Reilly agreed that the project could take awhile.

According to Beal, the main telephone cable that provides service to Great and Little Cranberry islands from Southwest Harbor was initially 3 inches in diameter, but is now about 1 inch. The protective sheathing covering the cable is completely stripped away where the cable leaves the water and goes onto Great Cranberry Island, and salt water is attacking the phone lines directly, he said.

The cable provides service to both Great and Little Cranberry islands, where about 140 people live year-round.

Beal did not know how many residents still had service late Tuesday afternoon.

Phone service began cutting off three days ago, Beal said, but no one knew why. By Tuesday, selectmen suspected the main cable was the culprit and inspected it.

“Very few phone lines still work,” said Beal, who still had service as of 3:30 p.m. “How much longer service will exist is in question.”

Beal said he wrote a letter to the Maine Public Utilities Commission in January expressing the town’s concern over the eroding cable and asking the state agency for help in getting it fixed.

A PUC official told Beal on Tuesday the letter did not arrive.

“I never got a response back,” he said. “They said they didn’t get the original letter. Isn’t that terrible?”

In his Jan. 16 letter to the PUC commissioners, Beal expressed the town’s frustrations over poor and unreliable phone service and asked the PUC to help.

“It is with some frustration that I report my failure in convincing Verizon that improvements are required to our telephone cabling and switching equipment,” Beal wrote.

“Can you help our community? Can you carry our message and request for assistance to someone at Verizon who will listen?” Beal concluded.

In a letter to the PUC on Tuesday, Beal notified the agency that phone service was quickly failing on Great and Little Cranberry islands and asked again for help.

“I ask for your assistance in helping this town receive attention for its lack of adequate telephone service, replacement of the underwater cable to the mainland, and restoration of failed or inadequate telephone equipment,” Beal wrote.

“Telephone service continues to fail hourly and I do not believe service will continue much longer,” he said.