GCI said Saturday that a ship is coming from Seattle to make repairs to a damaged section of undersea fiber optic cable that has caused the loss of GCI cell phone and internet service in Sitka.
Service, which was cut Thursday, Aug. 29, is not expected to be back up until next week.
GCI said the repair ship is expected to be at the site of the undersea cable break, about 30 miles from Sitka, by Friday, Sept. 6, and that repairs could take three to seven days.
In the meantime, the public is getting help from Starlink satellite communication equipment 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 would be installed at the Sitka Public Library.
“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,” said Christopher Cropley, director of Tidal Network.
“We have a warehouse in Juneau with some Starlink terminals, so we sent those over to Sitka where our staff is distributing and installing Starlink to critical institutions for the community,” he said.
“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.”
The GCI outage occurred around 11:25 a.m. Thursday. With no internet to complete credit card sales, some businesses went to cash-only sales. Existing Starlink customers throughout town were sharing their satellite connections by allowing neighbors to sign on with their own wi-fi devices.
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 Aug. 31.
Local landline communications have not been affected, and the police department said 911 calls are getting through.
SEARHC said the Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center and clinics have been “negatively impacted” by the outage. Elective surgeries have been canceled, and it is diverting emergency patients from outside communities until service is restored.
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