Some businesses close because of telephone line problems

Several Linton businesses and banks that rely on AT&T for communications experienced technical difficulties after an AT&T fiberoptic land line was cut Thursday morning.

When it came to banking business, most Linton banks closed their doors.

Diana Sisil, a financial service representative at Regions Bank in Linton, confirmed that both the downtown banking branch and the east side banking branch were closed Thursday.

"The ATM and debit are down ... but we're able to do some transactions," Sisil said. "We're trying to tell customers what's going on."

Both Regions Bank branches are customers of AT&T, she noted.

"There's nothing we can do," said another representative of Regions Bank.

The Bloomfield State Bank Linton branch was also closed Thursday.

"Everything is down," said Linda Kavanaugh, who is a teller at the bank.

The Bloomfield State Bank Linton Banking Center also relies on AT&T for its communications.

Linton's two MainSource Bank branches closed the lobby doors but were assisting customers at the window.

Mark Robinson, bank manager, said, "The drive up is open and the lobby is closed (at both locations)."

MainSource also relies on AT&T.

Crane Federal Credit Union Linton branch was open on Thursday -- although the branch is a customer of AT&T.

Tom Strange, manager, confirmed that the credit union would be open until 4 p.m. on Thursday.

"We have procedures in place when there are power outages ... to take care of our daily business for our customers," Strange said.

Walmart's Linton store was open for business. The store also relies on AT&T for communications.

A Linton Walmart representative explained, "We haven't been able to receive calls or make calls. Our systems are down, credit and debit are down. But business is running as usual. We're running credit cards through a special way, but debit cards are not being accepted."

AT&T wireless service was not available in Linton on Thursday. But, Linton AT&T land line customers could make calls to other land lines within Linton but not outside of the area.

Outside calls were reportedly not coming into the area either.

Some AT&T Internet service was also reportedly down in the area.