Internet service provided by GCI was knocked out when Wrangell was pummeled by a gusty storm on Nov. 30, and three weeks later residents were still reporting outages.
Technicians were able to restore service to customers by Dec. 3, but there were complaints as recently as Dec. 22 that the service comes and goes.
Residents took to the Wrangell Community Group on Facebook to ask if others were experiencing outages — and to complain. Some were seeing disruptions every day, sometimes up to five hours with no service.
“It’s my understanding that severe weather Nov. 30 through Dec. 3 caused power outages that disrupted service. Conditions were cleared on Dec. 3, and our technicians were able to restore service,” Heather Handyside, vice president of communications for GCI, said on Dec. 22. “With the exception of a short issue on Dec. 12, service was steady until an interruption on Dec. 20 that was resolved the same day.”
Customers, however, were reporting the same intermittent problem two days later. Handyside didn’t say what issue was causing the disruption in service.
“Our team is working to first restore service to customers and then to determine if the recent service issues are linked,” Handyside said Dec. 22. “If so, we’ll work on resolving those issues in order to prevent the situation in the future.”
The outages didn’t seem to be affecting other Southeast communities, she said.
If there’s a specific issue to report, the best way to contact the support team is through GCI’s Facebook page, Handyside said.
“We apologize for the inconvenience for our customers,” she said. “We’re working to get service restored as quickly as possible.”
Connections were restored for most in Wrangell on the night of Dec. 22.
Since that time, service has been working as expected, except for brief spotty connections this past Sunday and Monday. Handyside said nothing had been reported and GCI wasn’t seeing any irregularities in its reports. “And we haven’t received any social media comments about interruptions to service lately — not since Dec. 22,” she said.
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