Residents in Lac Ste. Anne County may be without phone or internet services for days after a small fire was set at the TELUS building in Sangudo.
A spokesperson for RCMP told CTV News that members from the Mayerthorpe detachment responded to a break and enter at the building on Wednesday night. When they arrived, they found a small fire that had been deliberately set. There was minor damage to the building.
TELUS says the building was an active crime scene for several hours, but that they had technicians at work as soon as they had access to the building.
A suspect vehicle, a stolen 2006 dark blue Toyota Matrix, was later recovered in the Whitecourt area.
The majority of the outage is in Sangudo, but service disruptions could extend 10 kilometres around the hamlet and the Town of Mayerthorpe was without services for much of Thursday.
Emergency Alert Alberta says there is no land line service in the area, and cell phone service has also been extremely compromised. TELUS says internet service may also be impacted.
TELUS says repairs for around 2,000 customers could take several days, and that priority will be given to critical infrastructure, such as hospitals, police and fire services.
County buildings in Lac Ste. Anne do not have phone service so staff can only be contacted by email. Lac Ste. Anne County says they will be monitoring Facebook messages closely until phone service is restored.
Mayerthorpe RCMP are investigating the vandalism to the building.
