FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - A Fort Lauderdale neighborhood lost access to the internet after a truck knocked over cable wires as it drove by.
The outage cut off students’ access to remote learning.
Michelle Hemple said, “It’s worse than you can imagine. I’m not only the mom, the teacher, I’m now also working from home.”
An 18-wheeler tore down low-lying wiring near Southwest 33rd Avenue and 17th Street Wednesday, leaving the area without internet or cable.
Hemple was left with no way to teach her kids.
“Just losing one day of online learning with two children in two different grades sets you back several hours,” she said.
The truck also dragged one of the wires across the roof of Andrew Lucania’s home, knocking down an air vent and snapping a flag pole.
Lucania said, “I heard a big two thuds: boom, boom. At first I thought live wires, like, ‘Oh my God, no one go outside, don’t touch anything. Someone might get electrocuted.’ But thank God that my neighbor, he works for Xfinity, told me that it was just cable wires.”
As crews continue working to restore power to the neighborhood, Hemple said she is having to resort to other ways to teach.
“It’s not like I can take them to a library or gain access anywhere else, so we might have to go the old-school route, book and paper and pencil-to-paper,” she said.
Comcast said they would like to have the neighborhood up and running as soon as possible.
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