An unnamed company doing excavation work is suspected of cutting a fiber optic line running under the Pearl River, effectively severing Charter cable and Internet service to about 5,000 Picayune customers.

Charter Director of Engineering Grant Evans said representatives with the cable company have been receiving calls Monday about the outage, and after an investigation, company employees discovered the fiber optic line that runs under the river was severed.

Evans said the company is still investigating the exact nature in which the line was severed, but he did say that there was a trackhoe operating in close vicinity to the severed line.

“I think the facts will bear themselves out,” Evans said.

That fiber optic line is the primary outlet for providing Charter service to close to 5,000 customers in this area, so when it was severed, all of Picayune was out of cable and Internet service while the company waited on the repairs.

Charter employees and workers with a contractor were out Monday repairing the line, which was expected to take anywhere from four to 12 hours to complete due to the murky nature of the water, Evans said

“We will continue to work all night if that’s necessary,” Evans said.