OLYMPIA - Several state agencies experienced outages to their telephones and networks when a construction crew severed a fiber optic cable in Olympia on Saturday afternoon.
"At this time, our network and telephony services are operational, and we don't anticipate any further IT impacts to our state agencies' operations," said State Chief Information Officer and WaTech Director Jim Weaver. "Our state provides many critical services to the citizens of our state, so we are extremely grateful to the service provider for restoring services so quickly."
According to Washington Technology Solutions (WaTech), multiple state agencies were affected, primarily:
- Department of Social and Health Services
- Department of Corrections
- Department of Revenue
- Secretary of State's office
- Department of Licensing
- Department of Enterprise Services
- Department of Retirement Services
- Labor and Industries
The outage began when a construction backhoe dug up and severed a fiber optic cable at approximately 2 p.m. The service provider repaired the damaged cable and service was restored just after 1 a.m. Sunday.