Severed cable perturbs Comcast TV, Internet connections

Illinois State Police in Macomb confirmed that cable television and computer service were disrupted in parts of Adams, McDonough and Fulton counties. Phone service was temporarily lost in the Bushnell area as well.

Erin Slack, a representative with the Canton, Ill., Police Deparmtnent, said the department was not affected by the outage, but the Fulton County dispatch center was down for "three or four hours."

Jim Robesky, communications director at Quincy University, said the outage did not affect dorm residents who still had access to NCAA games on their televisions.

Comcast officials at Macomb did not return phone calls about the outages. Angelynne Amores, a public relations official with Comcast's Chicago region said Quincy lost service about 4:45 p.m. and connections were restored at about 9:50 p.m.