LAUREL COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) — Rising copper prices are a contributor to cable thefts across the nation. Stolen cables in Laurel County on Monday contributed to outages in central Kentucky.
Internet went down in places in Laurel County. In Estill County, emergency management reported a 911 outage.
“We did still have our administrative lines, but our 911 lines were actually down for approximately five hours,” said Emergency Management Director Ronnie Riddell.
“It affected from Laurel County all the way up into Nicholasville,” Dave Godsey, area manager for network operations with Kinetic by Windstream.
The outage was caused when someone stole 1,500 feet of cable along the stretch of Highway 25 in Laurel County.
“When you get there, you'll see a bare end of the cable and then it'll be missing,” Godsey said. “Then you'll see another bare end of a cable where they've just cut it and took a section.”
“Taking 1,500 feet, it's not like you just roll in here and in ten minutes you do that. I mean this is something that's going to take a couple of hours.”
From June 2024 to June 2025, there were more than 15,000 destructive attacks on domestic communication networks around the country with copper theft being a major driver, television and internet industry trade group NCTA reports.
More than 9.5 million customers were affected. While California and Texas lead the way for number of incidents, Kentucky ranked 5th.
“Here in Clay, Knox, and Laurel, we've got a real issue with it,” Godsey said. “It's happening, you know, four or five times a week, usually.”
With copper prices reaching an all-time high, Godsey hopes the community will help prevent future theft.
“We ask you, be vigilant and be on the lookout for anything that looks suspicious or out of place,” Godsey said.
“It's illegal for one thing, but you could actually cause somebody lose their life,” Riddell added.
“This is not a victimless crime,” Godsey continued. “It affects the community's ability to contact first responders, emergency services, local law enforcement, so on.”
That’s why Kinetic is offering a reward; not just in this case, but anytime their property is stolen.
“We are offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who has information that leads to the arrest and conviction of person or persons that have vandalized or stolen our property,” Godsey said.
Kinetic hopes these efforts will help cut down the amount of cables that are stolen in central and eastern Kentucky.
