Internet service in Kent has been repeatedly disrupted due to vandalism, affecting thousands of residents.
As of May 5, more than 20 incidents have been reported this year, with 35 in the past six months, according to a spokesperson for Xfinity Comcast, the city's main internet provider.
"Initially I think people think, 'I can't stream a movie, or my kids can't play a game,' but really it's much more serious than that," Mayor Dana Ralph said. "We had an outage where Valley Com was impacted — so 911 call centers were affected."
Ralph said vandals are cutting fiber-optic cables, likely mistaking them for traditional copper telephone wires, which can be sold for scrap.
The most recent incident happened early Monday morning near Southeast 192nd Street and 124th Avenue Southeast. Xfinity said service was restored by 4 p.m. that day.
Just days earlier, another outage over the weekend affected about 4,000 people, according to Ralph.
"It used to be when it was just copper wire theft, we were able to work with the recyclers and catch people when they went to sell it," she said. "Now what's happening is they're cutting the wire and not getting anything, so there's no way to track the people who are cutting it, short of catching them in the act."
In a statement to [news source], Xfinity said in part, "The scale and impact of these thefts are comparable to the damage typically caused by natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires."
Found on Mainstream News