Gte Customers Can Reach Out Again

Long-distance service to Priest Lake telephone customers has been restored, GTE officials said Thursday.

The outage, which began Wednesday, was caused by heavy ice buildup on the solar panels at a microwave radio site atop Binarch Ridge. GTE technicians cleared the ice and also replaced an emergency generator that had been stolen from a small, locked building at the site.

About 1,500 customers were affected. , DataTimes