Swirling snow kept repairmen from reaching a mountaintop, microwave repeater tower near Sullivan River last weekend, effectively cutting off long-distance and wireless phone service for many residents, and Internet access for state offices in Haines.
“I’m just dead in the water,” said Deb Stanford, who works as a clerk at the state public health nurse office. “If a client requires an online record, I can’t help them. I’m heading to Juneau today and I hear the ferry system is down, too, so I hope I can get my ticket.”
Stanford couldn’t make long-distance phone calls, send e-mails, retrieve computer-based medical records or enter data. More worrisome, she said, the service interruption would interfere with checks on expensive vaccines stored in the nurse office. Temperatures are monitored during the night through an Internet connection, she said.
“This is not ignored,” Stanford said. “This is (worth) many thousands of dollars.”
Haines DMV staffer Sarah Virg-In used the day to organize the office in anticipation of her move to Barrow. “Everything is done online – licensing, titles, tests,” Virg-In said.
Randy Bachman, commercial fisheries biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said he was “getting a lot done,” even without the Internet. “I’m old-school,” Bachman said. “I keep all my data on my laptop computer, so I can work right on my computer and continue on.”
AT&T spokesperson Anne Marshall said the outage was “a very, very unusual situation.”
“There was a problem with one of the generators that for safety reasons shut it and the backup generator down,” she said. “The battery backup turned on and did operate for a while. Usually, the techs can get into the site while the battery still has power to fix the issue before anyone knows there’s an issue; however, the weather was way too dangerous.”
AT&T technicians made three attempts by helicopter to reach the site but were hampered by blinding snowfall. “The weather finally let up enough (Tuesday) that they could airlift a new generator into place and restore service.”
The outage also impacted Alaska Communications Systems and Alaska Power and Telephone customers in Haines and Skagway.