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Cellphone, Internet, and telephone services across half of Arizona went dark on Wednesday after vandals sliced a sensitive fiber optic cable, according to those familiar with the situation. The incident is raising concerns about the safety of U.S. infrastructure.
The outage shut down critical services across large parts of the state, preventing individuals from using their phones, bank and ATM cards, and the Internet. Critical services, such as police and state government databases, as well as banks and hospitals, also were affected as a result of the vandalism.
The services first went dead around noon MST on Wednesday, causing complete service interruptions across half the state, from Phoenix to such northern cities as Sedona, Prescott, and Cotton Wood, according to an official from CenturyLink, the Louisiana-based communications company that owns the severed line.
“There was a vandalism that took place on a fiber optic cable that basically runs from Phoenix to Northern Arizona,” said Alex Juarez, a spokesman for CenturyLink in Arizona.
We’re not sure what the intent was, but they were able to cut the fiber optic cable, possibly using a hacksaw,” Juarez explained. “It looks like a pretty straight cut.”
CenturyLink personnel responded quickly to the scene to locate where the line was cut and assess the damage. They were eventually able to repair the line and get services back up and running in the early morning hours of Thursday.
“Obviously CenturyLink takes a high concern in security. Anytime there’s an outage, it impacts customers and business. In this instance, it affected everything from banks to hospitals to state agencies, you name it,” Juarez said. “So it’s a high priority to have these lines secure. These types of instances do not happen very often.”
The cable is located in a desert area north of Phoenix, meaning it is not a site routinely accessed by passersby.
“It’s a desert area, so it’s very remote, extremely remote,” Juarez said.
originally posted by: NthOther
Did anyone on ATS actually experience this? I live in the central Arizona corridor they're talking about, and I didn't notice a damn thing. Nor did anyone in my community. Nor did any of my friends, coworkers... pretty much everyone I know or came into contact with that day. No business I interacted with had any trouble.
And this is across multiple service providers. I don't know who uses CenturyLink and who doesn't specifically, but nobody said anything about it.
In fact, I don't think this ever even happened. This is part of the drum beat to the coming crackdown on communications, under the auspices of "protecting us from the terrorists". Or vandals, now. Vandals are terrorists. You watch.
these guys knew what they were doing and came prepared.
our grid is far more vulnerable than I think most people realize, and probably more vulnerable than even most of us here realize,
originally posted by: Atsbhct
This is just a buzzfeed link, so it's not exactly journalism at its best, but it was reported on social media that a bright pink "aurora" was seen over Tucson. Apparently, military there was quick to claim it as a rocket launch. Maybe just a coincidence, but who knows.
Who in their right mind would use a hacksaw.
originally posted by: RainbowSkye
Well it affected my cable. It's definitely real.
originally posted by: Atsbhct
This is just a buzzfeed link, so it's not exactly journalism at its best, but it was reported on social media that a bright pink "aurora" was seen over Tucson. Apparently, military there was quick to claim it as a rocket launch. Maybe just a coincidence, but who knows.
www.buzzfeed.com...
originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: Anyafaj
So, this sort of outage could indeed be a dry run for SOMETHING, but I think it would be unwise to obsess over the worst case scenario in this matter. The reason I say that, is that ordinarily the sort of people who give a damn about placing communications blackouts over an area, are looking to get in to a place, and get out again with no one being the wiser. That suggests theft or robbery to me, more than it does some sort of terror related offence.