CenturyLink fire knocks out data services

RANGELY I A horse barn in Bailey, Colo., that caught fire Friday burned CenturyLink fiber optic lines along the property’s easement and caused outages to more than 17,000 residents across Colorado, public relations manager Randy Krause said Monday.
Rangely residents were among those who lost high-speed Internet and data services around 10:30 a.m. Businesses across town were required to resort to “cash only” purchases as transaction systems lost connectivity.
Although the outage disrupted business and personal communications, most residents appeared to take it in stride.
While some Kum & Go customers chose not to use the on-site ATM or return with cash, most made their purchases, keeping register lines busy throughout the day.
Across the affected area, some customers were rerouted to alternate lines in place to handle redundancy in the event of an outage. The majority of users, however, were without service throughout the day, Krause said.
CenturyLink workers were able to splice lines together and began restoring service to the affected areas around 5 p.m., with all Internet and data services restored by 8 p.m., Krause said. Full connectivity returned to Rangely shortly after 5 p.m.