OPINION: One Week (and Counting) Verizon "Landline" Outage in Covered Bridge

Hundreds of Covered Bridge residents were left without phone service over the Memorial Day Weekend. And after 1 week, many are still without service. It was the result of not one but two major failures.

The most significant failure was a result of the flooding from recent rain storms. And the second failure, was caused by an accident on Union Hill road.
                                                                                                         
After Hurricane Sandy, many people were so happy they kept their Verizon "Landline" because others had no phone service. However, the members of the Covered Bridge Utilities Committee knew it was only a matter of time before Verizon "Landlines" had a major failure.

What should Covered Bridge do? We already knew that Verizon stopped upgrading the 35 year old rotting copper years ago. And FIOS? Publicly they say next year maybe something can be done. But inside sources tells us it is at least 5 years away and may never happen.

Verizon's only other answer was as expected, use your expensive Verizon wireless phone. What should we do? What would you do??