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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Sliced cable cuts phone, Internet in NW St. Louis County

Tom Klein
Posted 10/21/15

REGIONAL – The accidental cutting of CenturyLink fiber lines by a contractor disrupted Internet and landline phone service across a wide swath of northern St. Louis County and portions of …

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Sliced cable cuts phone, Internet in NW St. Louis County

Posted

REGIONAL – The accidental cutting of CenturyLink fiber lines by a contractor disrupted Internet and landline phone service across a wide swath of northern St. Louis County and portions of Koochiching County on Monday.

The outage, which lasted from noon to 9 p.m. in some areas, forced the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Department to set up temporary emergency numbers because people in the affected regions couldn’t call 911.

Steve Steblay, supervising deputy at the Duluth Sheriff’s Office in charge of 911, said temporary alternative emergency numbers that could be reached by cell phone were set up in Orr and Cook.

“We used fire service numbers for Orr and Cook for our 911 calls from the region,” said Steblay, who said the outage occurred during hours when the department typically doesn’t get a high volume of emergency calls.

Steblay said their office was told the outage was caused by a contractor, operating a backhoe, who accidentally cut several fiber lines. Service for both land phone lines and Internet service was out from about noon to 9 p.m. in Cook, Orr, Silverdale, Greaney and Gheen, as well as Koochiching County, Steblay said.

The outage affected area businesses, which were not only unable to use phone service but also could not process credit cards.

“It was pretty crazy,” said Toni Swanson, office manager at Zup’s Food Market in Cook. “But we were able to accommodate most customers.”

McDonald’s in Cook encountered similar problems, but department manager Laura Zozgornik said the restaurant’s backup system allowed customers to use credit cards.

“I wasted three hours with our technical staff thinking it was just our problem, but found it was a lot more widespread,” said Zozgornik. “But we were still able to serve our customers in the end.”

Lucky Seven in Cook experienced no problem with Internet or credit card processing because it uses an alternative to CenturyLink— Access Broadband, a high-speed Internet provider headquartered in Virginia.

In Orr, it was a similar story.

Norman’s One Stop was unable to process credit cards or obtain hunting licenses for customers due to the outage, according to Lynn Norman. She said it probably hurt business for the day, but they were still able to accommodate customers who could pay in cash or with a check. “It’s just one of those things you have to deal with,” she said.

Pelican Bay Foods also was unable to process credit and Fleet Fuel cards. “Business was noticeably slower on Monday,” said Mitch Kennebeck, evening manager at Pelican Bay Foods.