"We shut down the northbound and southbound traffic lanes until PG&E told us that they were not hot wires," said CHP Ofc. Art Montiel.
The snapped line caused about 3,000 Comcast customers to temporarily lose service. By 12:30 all service to Comcast customers was restored. Comcast customer Marco Baneges was upset that he wasn't able to watch the World Cup Tuesday morning.
"I want to watch the game of Brazil and North Korea today, but I don't know what happened with Comcast," said Baneges.
A PG&E worker cut the fiber optic line and took it away, putting an end to the 90 minute highway closure. As for what caused the wire to come down in the first place -- speculation has it that a sailboat on the back of truck did it.
"From the unconfirmed reports that we have received, it appears that a truck carrying a sailboat snagged our line while it was driving on 101 and inadvertently pulled it down," said Comcast spokesperson Andrew Johnson.
A temporary fiber optic line has been placed inside a black sleeve. The permanent fix will require a new fiber optic line be strung all the way across the freeway.
"They will have to shut it down, at this point it is probably not going to happen until maybe after midnight tonight. So it will not affect commute traffic," said Montiel.
Comcast crews are not sure how long the repairs will take after midnight. They do believe that they will be done before the Wednesday morning commute.
