Gunfire in Oakland Leaves 30,000 People Without Internet, TV, Phone Services
Fiber cables are manufactured to be resilient to all types of weather and years of wear and tear, but one thing they can't withstand is being shot at, as 30,000 people in Oakland, California discovered yesterday.
As DCD reports, an outage occurred in Oakland at around 5am on Sunday following reports of shooting at the city's Eastmont Mall. The Police Department later confirmed that surveillance footage had captured someone firing 17 shots out of the window of their vehicle and into the air. As the Comcast tweet below confirms, multiple bullets pierced fiber cables.
Around 30,000 people in the area were left without internet access, TV or phone services, and their home security systems went offline. By 3:40pm, Comcast managed to restore services to around 10,000 customers, but by 6pm the remaining 20,000 were still waiting for their connections to be reestablished. At the time, Comcast spokesperson Joan Hammel apologized, saying, "We're working as fast as we can to make all the repairs and get folks' services back up and running." It took until 10am this morning to get everyone back online.
As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, the police initially discovered the location of the gunfire using the ShotSpotter detection system. It uses a range of sensors, including acoustic, vibration, and optical sensors, to accurately detect the precise location shots were fired. In this case, when police offices arrived at the predicted location they found bullet casings. Surveillance footage captured in the area then confirmed the single shooter and direction of the shots.
Sign up for What's New Now to get our top stories delivered to your inbox every morning.
This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links.
Read more on pcmag.com
