HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) — Days after power was restored to millions of people in Southeast Texas following Hurricane Beryl, some areas still lack internet and phone service, with viewers who contacted ABC13 saying it's impacting their ability to work from home or serve customers at work.
Nina Fragar, general manager of Pipeline Grill in Baytown, said power was restored to the restaurant last Friday, but Xfinity internet and landline phone service remain without service.
As a result, stores were unable to answer calls from customers asking whether they had reopened, and some customers walked out because they were unable to pay with their credit cards.
“It's really tough. We're a small business and we make our money on day-to-day sales,” said Fragar. “We've lost a lot of customers. The first day, 35 tables left. The second day, 47 tables left. The third day, 58 tables left. It's probably going to take us three to four months to recover.”
Sharon Mays lives in southeast Houston and is in a similar situation. Her power was restored last Friday, but AT&T's internet connection is still down, and she told ABC13 that it's affecting her work because she works from home.
“I work remotely for a marketing firm and have a lot of client meetings during the week, so it's interfering with my ability to communicate with clients and get my work done. I have to work from different hotspots and it's unstable. It's very frustrating,” Mays said.
ABC13 has reached out to their service provider with their concerns, after they haven't received answers about what's causing the ongoing outage or when the service will be back online.
A spokesman for Comcast, which owns Xfinity, said: The network relies on different fiber nodes The networks are dotted around the city and run on electricity, and if a power outage leaves one of these nodes offline, it could affect internet and landline phone service for people who rely on the fiber optic lines connected to it.
Damage to fiber optic lines, which are prioritized for repair after severe storms, may also be contributing to Comcast/Xfinity's ongoing outages, though repairs could be delayed if trees or debris are still blocking lines or if CenterPoint needs to make repairs to utility poles first.
Comcast said it expects service to be fully restored to customers by the end of the day Friday, except for those whose networks remain heavily affected.
In a statement to ABC13, A.T.“Some customers may still have interrupted home phone or internet service due to ongoing power outages and/or storm damage to utility poles and cables… In most cases, repairs to damaged aerial equipment cannot begin until utility power repairs are completed,” a &T representative wrote.
in&T said it had restored service to 96 percent of customers known to have been affected, but it was unclear when it planned to bring all affected areas back online.
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