This is a developing story and more information will be added as it becomes available.
A communications outage took down phone and internet service Thursday afternoon around Juneau, and it had yet to be widely restored as of Thursday evening.
The outage briefly interrupted 911 service, that had been restored by late Thursday afternoon, according to Juneau Police Department, but their business line was still down as of 5:10 p.m.
** UPDATE**
9-1-1 is working at our backup call center. Phones are still down.
*********
There is a significant…Posted by Juneau Police Department on Thursday, 29 April 2021
A text to Juneau School District parents said that phones and internet were down at multiple locations, including Auke Bay Elementary School, Mendenhall River Community School, Riverbend Elementary School, Sayéik: Gastineau Community School, Floyd Dryden Middle School, and Dzantik’i Heeni Middle School.
The Alaska State Legislature was also affected according to a social media post. Committee meetings were placed on hold.
City-wide internet outage in Juneau is impacting the Alaska State Legislature. Teleconferencing and websites are down, and committees are on hold. #akleg
— Alaska Legislative Information Offices (@aklegislature) April 29, 2021
The cause of the outage was not yet known as of Thursday evening, but Downdetector.com, a site that tracks telecommunications outages, showed reports of outages spiking for GCI and Alaska Communications on Thursday afternoon.
Messages seeking comment were not immediately returned by GCI or Alaska Communications.
• Contact reporter Michael S. Lockett at (757) 621-1197 or mlockett@juneauempire.com.
