'Perfect Storm' Cuts Off Thousands of Cable Customers

A bizzare accident Sunday left 8,100 local Service Electric customers without phone cable and internet access, and company officials say some of them may have to wait until Tuesday to get back online.

As of Monday morning, Service Electric had restored more than 4,500 of its customers in Easton and other parts of Northampton County, manager Jack Capparell said. But it could take another day to reconnect another 3,000 or so customers in west Bethlehem and east Allentown.

"It was like a perfect storm," Capparell said, describing how the outage happened.

A tree came down onto a wire that crosses the Lehigh River between Allentown and Bethlehem. It pushed the wire in front of a train, which then pulled and stretched the cable, Capparell said.

Capparell said the company will provide updates about the restoration work on its website.