GCI said Saturday afternoon that a ship is being dispatched from Seattle to make repairs to a damaged section of fiberoptic cable causing the loss of GCI phone and internet service, starting before noon Thursday and continuing today
GCI said the repair ship is expected to be at the site of the undersea cable break, about 30 miles from Sitka, by Sept. 6, and for repairs to take three to seven days, indicating that normal communication may not be restored until Sept. 13.
In the meantime, help for the public should be on the way, perhaps as early of this weekend, with the arrival and installation of Starlink satellite communication equipment being loaned to the city by the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska broadband department, Tidal Network.
The city IT department said the equipment will be installed at the Sitka Public Library.
Christopher Cropley, director of Tidal Network, said CCTHITA was happy to help and has been working with the city during the communications emergency.
“We heard that Sitka is suffering a long-term internet outage and many of the vital services for the community were affected, whether it’s buying groceries or getting health care or what have you,” he said. “We have a warehouse in Juneau with some Starlink terminals so we sent those over to Sitka where our staff distributing and installing Starlink to critical institutions for the community,”’
The outage occurred around 11:25 a.m. Thursday. With no internet to complete credit card sales some businesses went to cash-only sales. Starlink customers throughout town were sharing their satelline connections by allowing their neighbors to sign on to with their own wi-fi devices. The Sentinel received such help from various quarters today, including city hall.
The lobby of the city building was crowded with teens and adults sharing the city’s internet, while a steady stream of customers arrived to pay their property tax bills, which were due today.
ACS told the city’s IT department Thursday that it was investigating the outage, and would contact the city when more information about the cause was available.
GCI told its customers that the fiber optic cable broke some 30 miles offshore, near Sitka.
The emergency Starlink service at the library will be one of several being installed with equipment provided by Tidal Network.
“We’ll be doing it in a triage style,” Cropley said. “Not first-come, first-serve. We have a limited number of terminals available to us immediately so we are prioritizing those based on community need. Whether it’s the Coast Guard, the hospital, the library. So we can do a hot spot or community-geared network so anybody can come and use their Internet for their various needs.”
Cropley, whose workforce is located around the state and throughout the U.S., said he’s been hearing from Sitkans about their problems and needs.
“I’ve heard from a lot of people today throughout the community that have their own individual stories on what they needed the internet for, whether its to do their nonprofit work, provide health care, rescue service or just the continuity of life, business and health,” he said. Cropley said the plan is to create “hot spots” or a “community geared network where anybody can come and use the internet for their various needs.”
GCI has not communicated with the public but answered a call from city hall, and provided the city IT department with information about the planned repairs.
Landline communications have not been affected, and the police department said 911 calls are getting through. Police issued a public service announcement letting residents know that if they need police, they can call 911 for emergencies, but to call the business line at (907) 747-3245 for non-emergencies. Residents can also walk in to the police station at 304 Lake Street (entrance on Oja Way).
SEARHC said the Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center and clinics have been “negatively impacted” by the outage. Elective surgeries have been canceled. It also is diverting emergency patients from outside communities until service is restored. The ER and Urgent Care is open, and those with appointments at primary care may attend their appointments, although the news release said appointments may take longer due to the outage and only urgent prescriptions will be filled.
A number of businesses have internet access through Starlink, the satellite-based service provider, and the increase in users caused by the local outage slowed transmissions to some customers through that service, said a city hall IT technician.
Cropley said the internet is becoming an increasing part of daily lives.
“Especially today we see a lot of different institutions relying on the internet for more and more things and maybe in ways we don’t think about, whether it’s weighing things, or printing receipts or accepting money or keeping refrigerators monitored and cooled, all these different things,” Cropley said. “It’s kind of really crept into all the different facets of life around Sitka We just want to provide help as soon as we can, wherever we can do the most good.”
A number of Sitkans gathered outside city hall this morning with their smart phones, catching up with email, texting and calling those they may have been out of touch with, with the help of the city Starlink connection to the internet.
Outside, one person was using the city hot spot to purchase his own Starlink system on his smartphone. He said he almost ordered a system last week but put the decision off.
“I like the independence of the unit; that came crashing down with significance yesterday morning when we all lost contact with the outside world,” said Mark Gorman, former city administrator. “What’s been profound in the last 22 hours is how impactful the web and internet access is in our daily lives. I sat in my car last night to listen to the radio because we no longer have a radio in our home … it’s been a profound reminder of how much our lives have been impacted and changed in the last 25 years.”
• This story was originally published by the Sitka Sentinel.
