Utility wires stand damaged after the Aug. 10 derecho. CREDIT KCRG
By CBJ News Staff
news@corridorbusiness.com
Mediacom Communications will issue a total of $5.7 million in credits to 340,000 customers in Iowa, Illinois and Indiana whose service was impacted by the Aug. 10 derecho that tore through the Midwest.
The company announced late last week that the largest share of the credits will go to customers in Cedar Rapids and surrounding communities, as those areas sustained the more extensive storm damage affecting Mediacom services. The credits will appear in customers’ October billing statements.
“This was a highly destructive storm,” said Ed Pardini, Mediacom’s senior vice president of field operations in a release. “Unlike a hurricane or blizzard where we get several days of advance notice to prepare, this derecho appeared with almost no warning.”
All told, Mediacom has repaired or replaced more than 70 miles of wireline facilities and approximately 6,500 individual drops to customer homes in the Cedar Rapids area due to the devastating storm.
While Mediacom’s core network is now fully back online, the company estimates there is a small percentage of individual households that will need to have the cable line running from the utility pole to their home replaced due to storm damage. Mediacom brought extra personnel into Cedar Rapids and hoped to complete the bulk of repairs by Sept. 25.
Mediacom Group Vice President Steve Purcell said that customers and the public can expect to see network maintenance crews working in Cedar Rapids and neighboring communities over the next three to four weeks. He explained that network repair crews initially installed temporary lines in many segments of the network to quickly restore services to more customers.
In the weeks ahead, those temporary lines will be replaced with permanent network infrastructure. During short intervals when fiber strands and network lines are spliced into place, brief service interruptions may occur. This network maintenance will be done during daytime hours in smaller pockets or portions of various neighborhoods. CBJ
