This house has been without phone service for 4 days now. Apparently there are 70 homes in our community without this vital connection to the outside world. The phone company says they have no idea why the lines are down and they have no estimated time of repair. We are not terribly isolated, but enough so that if there was an emergency, there would be no way to solicit help from police or ambulance. Some have cell phones, we do too, but there is no service in this part of the valley. We would have to drive 2 kms to the top of clay hill to make the call. Our home is located 40 kms north of Prince George, British Columbia. You can travel north from the highway that passes by our house all the way to Alaska. We live in a community called Salmon Valley, home to about 250 households, most are agricultural or rural hobby farms. The last 4 kms of Salmon Valley road often suffers power outages, snowed-in roadways, and phone outages. We (apparently) live on the wrong side of the track. It is very frustrating! To make matters worse, tonight our water is not working. We have a shallow well with an 'above ground' pump that sends water to a pressure tank in our basement. Right in the middle of the dad-guy's shower, the water quit coming. He is in the well as I write to you, checking out the equipment and trying to trouble shoot the problem. It is 11:24pm. Tomorrow is a work/school day which begins at 6am. At this moment, I sure could go for a place in town.