Excerpted from an article by Jared Hunt at the Daily Mail Capitol Reporter

Cable thieves are to blame for cutting off the state Department of Agriculture's headquarters from the outside world Monday, an official said.  When employees arrived for work at the department's Guthrie headquarters Monday morning, they discovered all external communications had been severed.

Thieves cut the wires leading to the department's headquarters - located about 10 miles north of Charleston - in an attempt to strip copper from the utility cables, department spokesman Buddy Davidson said.  When the thieves cut the copper phone lines, they also severed the fiber optic data lines that provide online service to the headquarters.

As a result, department employees had no way to call or e-mail anyone outside their building.

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