Friday’s early morning fire that destroyed a West Tennessee Avenue home in Copperhill left as many as 500 ETC customers without some or all service.
Frankie Rigdon, vice president of operations for ETC, said the fire burned through four cables, two coaxial cables and two fiber optic lines. The coaxial cables carried local service while one of the fiber optic cables was a main connection between Blue Ridge and Ducktown.
Backup to the main fiber optic line was provided by a redundant ring going through Wolf Creek, and it was that ring that saved much of ETC’s service including long-distance calling, Rigdon said.
Rigdon praised the ETC crews that repaired the cables, calling the time it took “awesome” compared to industry standards. Repair work started at 9:30 a.m. Friday and splices were completed by 2 p.m. The main fiber optic cable alone carried 144 glass fibers and the other carried 24 individual glass fibers.
ETC crews sometimes battled through heavy smoke that came from the still-smoldering house. East Polk firefighters were called back to the scene around noon Friday while crews were working.