By Jonathan Zweygardt

Hays Post

The Ellis County IT Department is working to prevent future disruptions in service after a system outage last month.

IT Director Mike Leiker said an April 17 network outage affected the majority of county offices.

Leiker said it was determined a semi-truck had passed down an ally and caught the overhead cable and ripped the cable. Leiker said Ellis County wasn’t the only entity affected.

Crews from Eagle Communications were called, and services were restored later that day. The county was without services for almost eight hours, Leiker said.

Leiker told the Ellis County Commission Monday he is working to improve network stability.

“I’m currently exploring options to correct this situation and avoid it in the future,” Leiker said. “I’m going to look at options to build in redundant pathways for our wide-area network and additional backups on the network.”

Leiker said the county’s network contains both overhead and buried fiber, but there are risks both could be damaged.

“Unfortunately, because of the way our network was designed and modified several times over the years and during all the building projects we’ve had, some chinks in the armor, so to speak, have developed,” Leiker said.

Leiker will report back to the commission with a plan.

In other business, Health Services Director Kerry McCue told the commission a recent increase in lead cases was due to the Health Department working with a local business. McCue said a local business is conducting lead testing of its employees.

Noxious Weed Supervisor Gary Haas also updated the commission on recent legislation regarding noxious weeds.

The commission also met in two executive sessions to discuss pending litigation. No action was taken.

Ellis County will have a ribbon cutting at 4 p.m. Thursday at the new Health Department building at 2507 Canterbury.