I have been talking to communities about the importance of redundant cable paths for years. If you don't have at least two entirely separate cable paths into your community for telecommunications, your community, and especially your businesses, are at risk.
The most mundane risk is having a cable cut by a contractor digging somewhere. But as a painful example of what can go wrong, one of the primary fiber cable routes into New Orleans was across the Pontchartrain bridge, which suffered enormous damage.
Telecom companies are trying to patch other routes together to get Internet and phone service back into the city, but it is a sober reminder that we have to plan for disasters--the routine ones, like a wayward backhoe, or something much worse.
Loss of telecommunications services put businesses and citizens at risk, and many companies, as they evaluate relocation options, are asking about cable path redundancy. If you do not already have it, the next best thing is a plant to get it.