Downed cell tower has left many Thorhild County residents without service for weeks

CBC News

· Posted: Jul 06, 2025 8:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 4 hours ago

Many residents successful Thorhild County, Alta., have been without cellphone work for 3 weeks, aft thieves downed a 106-metre Telus tower.

Businesses are scrambling, while families worry about their inability to scope each different oregon entree assistance during an emergency.

Monique Janice Chartrand, who owns a roofing company, sends her children to enactment with their begetter successful the hamlet of Thorhild erstwhile she is moving retired of town.

"Just successful lawsuit thing ever happened — like if 1 of the kids fell down the stairs, oregon thing similar that, and you request to telephone 911," Chartrand told CBC News Friday.

She recalled however overmuch she relied connected her mobile telephone during the wildfire evacuation of Fort McMurray, Alta., wherever she utilized to live. Residents successful parts of Thorhild County, astir 85 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, were forced to fly wildfire successful May.

"Just ideate trying to get a clasp of your loved ones and you're successful a panic trying to get each your worldly retired of your house,"  Chartrand said.

Just aft 9 a.m. MT connected June 14, RCMP say officers responded to a telephone astir the downed compartment operation connected Range Road 233. All of its copper wiring was stolen.

Investigators believe the vandalism occurred astir 5 a.m. that day, erstwhile the astir 150 farmers served by the operation mislaid service, constabulary say.

Telus customers betwixt Clyde, Alta., and Thorhild County person had wireless services disrupted, a institution spokesperson told CBC News via email. They did not specify however galore customers person been impacted.

"As a impermanent solution, our teams person adjusted adjacent antennas to supply arsenic overmuch sum arsenic imaginable to the community, though determination whitethorn beryllium immoderate customers who acquisition intermittent oregon nary service," the spokesperson said.

"We are moving rapidly to physique a caller tower, which we expect volition beryllium completed successful September."

Telus encourages anyone with accusation astir the incidental to interaction police, they said.

The incidental is the second specified enactment of vandalism to impact a Telus operation northbound of Edmonton successful little than 3 months, the institution spokesperson said.

RCMP confirmed to CBC News that, successful precocious March, vandals destroyed different operation adjacent Bruderheim, Alta., a municipality astir 45 kilometres northeast of Edmonton and 50 kilometres southbound of Thorhild County. Although, constabulary said nothing was stolen.

Police said a chopped guy wire — a tensioned cablegram utilized to stabilize freestanding structures — caused the tower, located disconnected of Highway 15, to collapse.

"We are profoundly acrophobic astir the expanding frequence of these acts of vandalism," the Telus spokesperson said.

That tower's rebuild is expected to beryllium finished astatine the extremity of the month, they said.