This is what Time Warner Cable's recent East Village meltdown looked like

Remember back on Oct. 6, when a good chunk of the East Village/Lower East Side was without Time Warner Cable/Road Runner service?

OK, you don't have to swear.

Anyway, there's a post on at the Time Warner Cable Untangled blog.

TWC's director of digital communications, Jeff Simmermon, walks us through what happened... and how much of a mess it is to quickly repair... He starts by posting a photo of what you typically see under an NYC manhole (no snickering!), namely a mass of unmarked cables that belong to everyone from Time Warner to Verizon to RCN...

Here is the area where the fire happened that knocked out our service... the fire melted their fiber-optic cable...

...and here's an upclose look at the affected fiber cable...

This is what a healthy (unmelted!) fiber-optic cable looks like...

...and here's the cable after the Oct. 6 fire...

Per Simmermon: "It took the better part of the day to identify the problem, dig in, seperate the cable out and splice in a new piece of fiber-optic cable. Each of those hair-width fibers has to be reconnected to precisely the correct wire, or else the whole thing doesn’t work. Imagine re-connecting a severed ponytail and you’ve got the basic idea."

Oh, and the stuff in the top photos that look like remnants from a wig? Insulation for some of Verizon's cable.

All photos via Untangled. Thanks to EV Grieve reader Creature for the link.