Could be 3 weeks before Magnolia internet is restored after vandals undo repairs

Homes and businesses in Seattle’s Magnolia neighborhood have been without phone and internet service for five days, and now, CenturyLink says that repairs may take up to three weeks.

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The outage is being blamed on a pair of vandalism-related incidents from late last week. CenturyLink crews say that it appears as though someone cut through a wooden box running under the Magnolia Bridge that holds fiber-optic cables. Cables and copper wiring were then stolen.

After initial repairs, some homes in the area had their service restored on Saturday. But completed repairs were then vandalized again, and because of that, CenturyLink estimates that full restoration of service to Magnolia could take 2-3 weeks.

Rob Benson, a front desk worker at Coldwell Banker Bain Real Estate downtown Magnolia, told KIRO Newsradio that their phone and internet were down for four days, before eventually coming back online on Monday. To make matters worse, the outage has caused an alarm to ring nonstop in the building since last Thursday.

Benson says he’s never seen an outage like this in three years working in the neighborhood.

And while CenturyLink was able to work out a fix for the real estate office, others in the area have not been as lucky. The company says that it will be reaching out customers with direct updates on individual situations “soon.”

KIRO Newsradio reporter Nicole Jennings contributed to this story