Highway 103 in Halifax has reopened after being closed for several hours on Friday afternoon to accommodate emergency repairs of damaged telecommunications lines. The closure, which affected Exit 2B to Exit 3, was necessary due to a dump truck causing extensive damage to the lines near the Bayers Lake business park.
Jill Laing, a spokesperson for Eastlink, explained that the truck tore down several lines, resulting in significant damage to Eastlink’s network. As a result, thousands of customers in the western part of Halifax and the St. Margarets Bay area were left without internet service. At its peak, around 7,000 Eastlink customers were affected, but many were able to come back online as repairs progressed.
Crews began working on the outage early Friday morning, with repairs expected to take all day to complete. The complexity of the repairs, which required coordination with power and other partners, meant that the restoration process could extend into Friday night.
City Wide Communication was also impacted by the outage, with company president David Pothier stating that thousands of customers were without internet service. While most customers had their connections restored by rerouting through other service providers, some areas such as Clayton Park, Bedford, and the South Shore remained affected.
Pothier explained that the dump truck’s failure to lower its bucket when entering the highway caused significant damage to the overhead lines. The repairs were further complicated by the spread of damage across approximately 10 lanes of traffic on Highway 103 and various off-ramps.
City Wide Communications worked diligently to assist customers, with a full restoration expected to extend into the early morning hours of Saturday. Purple Cow, another affected telecommunications company, acknowledged the outage on their website and assured customers that their team was actively working on repairs.
Overall, the incident highlighted the importance of maintaining and protecting critical infrastructure such as telecommunications lines. The collaborative efforts of various companies and crews underscored the dedication to restoring services and minimizing disruptions for affected customers.