Phone service restored for over 14,000 customers in Mid-Columbia region

Phone, long-distance and internet service has been restored to the region after a fiber optic line was cut in Connell.

Service was knocked out for several hours to several customers around the Tri-Cities area, Columbia County and parts of Grant county, or about 8,900 CenturyLink customers. CenturyLink's Kerry Zimmer says another 5,500 in Walla Walla were experiencing outages.

9-1-1 service was also intermittent at times and there may have been internet outage in parts of Yakima, Starbucks and Royal City. Verizon Cell service may also be impacted.

The cut was caused by an unrelated contractor around 1:00 p.m. and crews were able to get the outage fixed around 4:50 p.m.