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Update: Charter Communications services restored in South Lake Tahoe

UPDATE 10 p.m.

Charter Communications services were restored just before 10 p.m. Friday — marking the end of a more than 12-hour outage that resulted from the downing of a fiber-optic line in Douglas County.

Internet services in South Lake Tahoe were restored around 9:50 p.m. Officials originally reported that a truck had knocked down an above ground fiber-optic line near the Minden–Tahoe Airport. The incident left Charter customers in the South Lake Tahoe area and Carson Valley without internet, phone and television service.

Douglas County Undersheriff Paul Howell confirmed Friday evening that a garbage truck had  downed the line. Howell did not know which company the truck belonged to or the specific details of the incident.

Bret Picciolo, director of communications for Charter’s northwest region, stated earlier in the day that the outage was due to a traffic accident.

“A traffic accident has caused damage to our fiber-optic network and is impacting service for Charter customers in the South Lake Tahoe and Gardnerville areas. Crews are working to repair the damage and restore services as quickly as possible,” Picciolo said in a statement.

Aside from Charter, other service providers using Charter’s fiber-optic were also impacted.

“A connectivity issue is causing a service interruption in the South Lake Tahoe area,” Heidi Flato, a public relations official for Verizon in the Pacific market, said in a statement Friday. “Our engineers are aware of this issue and are working with our vendor partners to resolve this issue quickly.”

While the issue left many customers frustrated, it did not appear to impact critical services in South Lake Tahoe.

South Lake Tahoe services, including emergency dispatch, operate on AT&T and were not impacted by the outage, City Manager Nancy Kerry told the Tribune Friday.

Jason Roberts, director of Barton Health’s information systems, told the Tribune that the outage had a small impact on Barton, most noticeably on the phone systems.

“As part of Barton’s disaster recovery plan, the electronic health records systems are connected to three internet providers,” Roberts said in an email. “This way clinicians can still have access to patient information at a reduced speed.”

ORIGINAL POST: Widespread internet outages for charter customers around South Lake Tahoe, Gardnerville

It’s unknown when services could be restored to Charter Communications customers in the South Lake Tahoe and Gardnerville areas.

Charter customers have been without internet, phone and cable services since 8:30 a.m. Friday. The outage occurred when a truck hit a pole and knocked down fiber-optic cables, Bret Picciolo, director of communications for Charter’s northwest region, confirmed Friday afternoon.

“A traffic accident has caused damage to our fiber-optic network and is impacting service for Charter customers in the South Lake Tahoe and Gardnerville areas. Crews are working to repair the damage and restore services as quickly as possible,” Picciolo said in a statement.

The Tribune will update this story as more details become available.


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