In The Dark - Epilogue

The crisis is over, and by now, it's all been written ... it's all been said. There are many articles and commentary in the local news about how poorly this situation was handled. There is no doubt that many people worked very hard to rectify this situation as quickly as possible, BUT ... there is no escaping the fact that we have a vulnerable custom-built communications link with no way to reliably get word out when it goes haywire.

Some are calling for greater planning and coordination for next time, and that's hard to argue with. However, I am not sure greater planning, at least by government, is the answer. I am not sure greater reliance on government during a crisis is the answer either. Our government just isn't that reliable, and I doubt it ever will be. After all, our local government has trouble managing its own day-to-day affairs, so we shouldn't have unrealistic expectations about its capabilities when we actually need help.

We got what we can expect. To prepare for next time, we should encourage the things that worked for us in this situation ... personal initiative by local businesses and individuals. We should allow more flexibility in communications choices (i.e., competition) so we are not beholden to one provider. Most importantly, however, any further emergency planning should recognize that during our next crisis, government is likely to fail us too.

In The Dark - Day 8 (Almost)

This morning, the County issued a press release saying that no cable fault had been found yet, but various percentages of service were continuing to be restored.

About two hours ago, the Facebook page of the sanjuanislander.com announced that CenturyLink had found the location of the severed cable, suspended along a rock face south of where it was originally placed. The article speculated that the cable might have moved because of an earthquake that occurred a few minutes before the service disruption.

Upon reading this, the Trojan Heron once again checked the USGS website for all recent earthquakes in Washington. You can check for yourself at this link. The only earthquake in the vicinity was a 2.3 magnitude earthquake occurring at 9:40 PM on Monday, November 4th ... which was several hours before the disruption. The earthquake story still doesn't make sense to us.

The Facebook article also has a lot of self-congratulatory language by CenturyLink about CenturyLink.

"Typically a response effort of this magnitude takes over a month to develop; the fact that we were able to mobilize within the first 36 hours is amazing. Restoring service is a top priority for CenturyLink, and we have pulled resources in from across the country to get these facilities up and running," said Tim Grigar, vice president and general manager of CenturyLink’s western Washington market.

If we take them at their word, CenturyLink began mobilizing a massive effort almost immediately because they knew this was a catastrophic event with a long response timeframe ... and yet, we heard practically nothing. We heard bupkis for days.

Also, there is a letter printed by the sanjuanislander.com that expresses the sentiments of some TH commenters, so we think it bears an airing here as well.

I just read a quote from Brendan Cowan, Director of the County Department of Emergency Management, in the Seattle Times. He states about the communications outage: "It's not like Armageddon. We're just disconnected - which for some people could be a great thing." 

Great sense of humor for someone whose paycheck isn't affected by the outage. 

But what about those people whose paycheck is affected. Like the employees of Wells Fargo Bank which closed. Or the people who couldn't get prescriptions filled. Or those who live here, telecommute and couldn't work. Or those of us who work off island and couldn't check on our families. 

Maybe we need someone in that job who understands the seriousness of what happened and is working hard to make sure it is fixed quickly and never happens again. And doesn't have an ambition to be a comedian. 

Alan M. Davis San Juan Island

Councilman Hughes made similar statements last Friday to KING 5. DEM issued an apology of sorts on their Facebook page today.

In The Dark - Day 7

Even if telecommunications are not flowing freely quite yet, information about our telecommunications situation is improving. A State of Emergency still exists. The situation is much improved but still far from normal.

The County issued a press release yesterday, which can be found online in several places. It says that landline service has been restored to normal. Let us know if that's true. Also, there are several reports about a barge being used to locate the failure point in the cable. There is no word that CenturyLink has precisely located the failure yet, so there is no official news on a possible cause either (or the exact fix needed). The fix is believed to require the laying of between 6,000 and 14,000 feet (worst case) of new cable. Final repairs are still several days away, which I suppose is obvious since we are a week into the disruption and they haven't even identified the failure location yet.

DEM has some Facebook posts about coverage by the Seattle Times and about cell phone service. Also, as color background to recent events, the Facebook page of the Lopez Island History Museum has an interesting post and photo of the early days of telephone service in the islands.

Early days of telephone service (switchboard on left) on Lopez, courtesy of Lopez History Museum, click to go to the Museum's Facebook page.

In The Dark - Day 5

Things are far from normal, but here we are at the end of Day 5, and partial service has been restored ... thanks largely to OPALCO.  OPALCO issued a press release, which says in part:

OPALCO’s data communications system is now carrying the phone and data traffic for San Juan Island, and providing 911 and phone solutions for the rest of San Juan County until CenturyLink can repair or replace their failed submarine cable.

The sanjuanislander.com has re-posted articles from a decade ago regarding OPALCO's decision to install fiber optic cable in excess of their immediate needs. Interesting reading.

The Island Guardian is reporting that a barge with divers was scheduled to begin replacing the damaged CenturyLink cable today. No word on when that might be completed.

There has been no further press release from CenturyLink that we know of. The County DEM is announcing on Facebook:

Orcas Islanders - Sprint is sending their Emergency Response "COLT" to the Orcas Library Sunday morning. This is a communications vehicle which provides wifi coverage and they'll have 100 phones for people to make calls. It should be there about 10 AM. 

Just off the phone with Verizon, their towers in Friday Harbor and Roche are now operational. Voice, data, and 911 are all working for Verizon wireless.

AT&T has three mobile sites up in town on three main islands, and some of their regular network may be coming online during day today.

We still don't know what caused the failure, but there have been a couple of interesting (if implausible) rumors. One rumor says that an earthquake, centered on San Juan Island, struck at the same time as the cable failure. We have checked with the USGS, and about 6 hours before the cable failure there was a very small magnitude 2.3 earthquake with a focus 12 km deep and an epicenter 8 km northwest of Friday Harbor (see USGS screen shot below). It seems very unlikely that this would have contributed to the failure.

Another rumor says that the optical cable was already near the end of its projected operational life, and it just wore out, aggravated perhaps by a seafloor ridge acting like a knife to gradually cut through the cable as it swayed back and forth in the bottom currents. We are not experts in optical communications, but this also seems implausible.

But something happened ... we just don't yet know what.

Commenters have been providing some great information and viewpoints. Thanks to all of you for sharing what you know, and keep the comments (and even the rumors) coming.

Click to enlarge - Earthquake on November 4, 2013

In The Dark - Day 4.75

Maybe there is some light at the end of the tunnel. DEM is reporting the following:

CenturyLink is reporting a restoration of limited land line long distance service as of 7:45pm on 11/8. This restoration is result of a temporary fix, and bandwidth is limited. Many calls may still have a hard time going through. Be patient, and try again if you are unable to connect.

Now would probably be a good time to hold off on any non-essential calls until initial rush passes.

We would fully expect there to be occasional set backs and technical complications in days to come. Hopefully overall trend is towards improved capability.

Thanks to everyone who has worked so hard on repair efforts, and most of all: thanks to all for community's patience and cooperative spirit. As always, a pleasure to witness, despite the struggles.

We've tried it, and it works (for now). We'd appreciate hearing if it is working elsewhere.  Can you call the mainland? Do you have internet?

In The Dark - Day 4.5

The County finally declared a State of Emergency and put out a press release.

Meeting in special session today, the San Juan County Council unanimously voted to declare “A State of Emergency within San Juan County, Washington.”

The declaration came on the fourth day since the failure of an underwater communications cable disrupted cell and landline telephone connections with the mainland. It is hoped that the declaration will enable public agencies to recover extraordinary costs incurred due to the outage and qualify local businesses for assistance.

The outage initially knocked out telephone communications between islands and to the mainland, including 911 emergency response lines and, though 911 service was restored Thursday, communications with the mainland remains limited.

The outage has interrupted other vital services that depend on Internet, cell or telephone service, including the Lifeline service used primarily by seniors and disabled persons.

The Sheriff and other emergency responders have also expressed concern that even citizens who have cell phone service, cannot reach local phone numbers, including emergency agencies, because all cell phone calls are currently processed on the mainland. Arrangements are now being made for emergency dispatch calls to be routed through Island County, but in the meantime cell phone users are being urged to try to use a landline phone to report emergencies.

“People have been coping with the inconveniences, but it is affecting essential services,” said Council Member Rick Hughes, who chaired the emergency meeting.

Some banks have had to close or restrict transactions because their data lines cannot connect to the mainland. Local lodging places, in areas that have no internet services as well as phone outages, have no way to accept reservations. Medical personnel on the mainland can’t call or fax prescriptions to local pharmacies and there is a concern that residents with families on the mainland can’t check on their well-being.

Fire departments and volunteers have gone door to door in many sections of the County to check on older or disabled neighbors.

“The community has really pulled together and found ways to deal with this”, Hughes said. “But as time goes on, the cost of coping has increased for our business community as well as the government, and our concerns about our ability to ensure the well-being of our residents are growing.”

The Council noted that CenturyLink, the company responsible for the services which have been interrupted, is putting its full resources and personnel to work to restore the services, however there is currently no firm estimate of when full services will be restored.

The latest statement from CenturyLink indicates that limited service to the mainland may be available within the next 48 hours. Full restoration of service will likely take several more days.

And as reported on the sanjuanislander.com, a barge with divers and robotics is investigating the cable and will release information about 5:30 pm today.

In the Dark - Day 4

We will put up a daily post about the status of the optical line break, even if there is nothing to say, in an effort to keep readers informed. Information on the outage is spread over several websites and Facebook, but there is no central clearinghouse for information. We'll do our best to summarize and give links to the latest information.  If you do have connectivity, even for only a few minutes, you can check here for the latest without having to search hither and yon.

If you have anything to add, please do. Here is the latest --

• DEM (the County Department of Emergency Management) is reporting on their Facebook page that 911 service is restored on all islands. DEM also reports that Verizon is working on a temporary link to get their Friday Harbor tower working. They also add that Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint are all mobilizing to improve connectivity.

• OPALCO also is reporting that 911 service is restored.

• No new information on repairs. No information from CenturyLink. No other information from the County.

• The story is beginning to show up in the larger media. Below is an article from KING 5.

SAN JUAN ISLAND, Wash. -- Frustration was spreading on the San Juan Islands, where residents entered their third day of a major phone and data disruption. 

A main fiber optic line broke Tuesday morning and the problems go far beyond losing 911 services. 

Laura Flaum, owner of Spring Street Deli in Friday Harbor says the outage has severely impacted her business. She can't run any credit cards, so customers have to pay with cash. 

She went from making 50 to 60 sandwiches a day, to making three.

It's devastating to businesses when you can't do credit transactions," Flaum said.

CenturyLink still doesn't know how an underwater fiber optic line was broken or how long it will take to fix it. Technicians are still trying to find a solution.

Internet and data transmissions are spotty at best. Some banks are closed. ATMs are down.

Sheriff Rob Nou says when 911 service went down, emergency personnel had to scramble to alert the public. 

"Reaching out to the community, getting fliers out, getting sandwich boards out, knocking on doors," said Nou.

Century Link had to redirect 911 calls to other working numbers on most of the islands.  On Thursday, San Juan County Department of Emergency Management tweeted CenturyLink reported 911 and island-to-island calling was working on Orcas Island as of 4 p.m. Thursday, and 911 was working on San Juan, Orcas, Shaw and Lopez islands. 

At the Friday Harbor Pharmacy, they finally got their internet back on Thursday. But staff can only call and receive calls from doctors and clinics on the island. 

"We were unable to receive any transfers, or prescriptions from the mainland," said pharmacy technician Cheyenne Mauldin.

Residents say the situation has moved beyond frustrating. 

"I can only call on the island by phone," said Ann Jarrell. "My cell phone is non-functioning. I have no internet, no email."

"I can't tell the weather," said resident Barbara Wollman. "I can't make an airline reservation. There's so much I can't do."

The bookkeeper at a gas station says she had to install a satellite dish just to order fuel. Island residents are thick-skinned, but island fever is spreading quickly.

Although tourists can't call to confirm hotel reservations, county council member Rick Hughes hotels want you to come anyway.

"If you want a rustic getaway, when you can feel sealed off from the mainland, this is the weekend to do it."

In The Dark

The entire County is suffering from the effects of a break in the optical cable running from Lopez Island to San Juan Island. San Juan Island is hardest hit, with widespread phone and internet outages. At least Orcas and Lopez have internet. Sources say that the cable fault lies 5,000 feet off of Fisherman Bay between Lopez and San Juan Island. Sources also say that repairs may take 3 weeks or more. CenturyLink is not committing to a timetable for repair. It may require the laying of a whole new cable rather than a simple repair of a damaged section of cable. Apparently, the break did not occur because of a dragged anchor or something similar. The cause is believed to be the result of wear and tear from currents ... tidal and otherwise.

Kudos to the San Juan County Library, the Bean, Rock Island, and others who are sharing their Wi-Fi capability ... kudos also to Ham radio operators, Fire & EMS ... and to islanders generally, who are helping one another with neighborliness and grace.

Thumbs down, however, to the County Office of Emergency Management, to CenturyLink, and to our elected officials who have provided precious little information ... and even less leadership. Why isn't CenturyLink on TV saying that they will be working 24-hours a day until this issue is resolved? Why aren't our elected leaders or the County Office of Emergency Management on radio and TV saying that they will do everything possible to get San Juan County open for business again? When a bridge collapsed in Skagit County, the Governor declared a state of emergency and it was a major topic of discussion at our Council.  But vital communications for business (and life) go down for an indefinite period of time ... and we hear practically nothing?

And there are a lot of unanswered questions, like why is Orcas affected if the break is between San Juan Island and Lopez Island. For that matter, why is Lopez affected at all?

We're in the dark in more ways than one.