Longview residents say fiber optic installation disrupting electricity, water, internet service

LONGVIEW, Texas (KLTV) - Are they the price of progress, or an unnecessary eye sore?

Some residents in Longview are complaining as fiber optic lines are being laid outside of their homes.

The construction affects critical services for some.

Some homeowners along Bill Owens Parkway have called it havoc, referring to contractors’ disruptions while installing fiber optic cable in their neighborhoods.

“It’s been about three months, three or four months that this has been going on. There was some disruption to the ground here, and at one point they cut our cable line so we lost internet. Just the marking of the lines, I’m wondering if they didn’t know there was a cable there,” said homeowner Paul Guidroz.

Over the past few months homeowners say they’ve had disruption of several utility services, sometimes without being notified that work is going on.

“Electrical line for power to our homes got disrupted. A couple days after that they broke a water main up by the front of the neighborhood, and that put the water out for the rest of the neighborhood,” Guidroz says.

The city has been well aware of the problems as numerous complaints have been made.

“Yeah, I’ve heard from our public works department and they’ve heard from some residents. Where there have been issues, we try to get their name and number and connect them with the companies. In order to have them resolve any situations,” says city of Longview public information officer Richard Yeakley.

The city will step in where needed.

“A lot of these companies, if they accidentally hit a water line or sewer line, they try to fix the problem immediately and get their service back on. We’re willing to step in as necessary to make sure our residents are not left without service,” Yeakley says.

Guidroz says he’s still looking forward to fiber-optic service, just without the problems.

“I plan to become a customer,” he says.

We reached out to the company that was laying the fiber optic and have yet to hear back.

Longview spokesperson Richard Yeakley says any utility outages caused by digging crews should be reported to the city.

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