from Meg Andrews, CenturyLink
Marketing & Media Relations- Seattle, WA
| UPDATE: 9:34 a.m., Tuesday, November 12
CenturyLink restoration efforts on the barge are temporally suspended due to inclement weather and 40 knot winds. CenturyLink has brought in an additional tug boat (total of three) to assist in stabilizing the vessels and is hoping to resume the restoration efforts this afternoon. Even though the barge is not in place, CenturyLink employees on the barge continue to prepare for splicing.
Image of cable. Photo: CenturyLink
CenturyLink crews have located both ends of a severed cable causing a network outage impacting the San Juan Islands.
The fiber, located at a depth of 280 feet approximately 5,000 feet from Lopez Island, was suspended along a rock face south of where it was originally placed. The cause for movement is unknown, but could have been caused by an earthquake that occurred three minutes prior to CenturyLink’s first alarm notification.
(Editor’s Note: Two minor earthquakes were recorded by USGS in the somewhat “immediate area” prior to the outage.
Magnitude: 2.3 8km NNW of Friday Harbor
Time 2013-11-04 21:40:49 UTC-08:00
Location 48.603°N 123.081°W
Depth 12.5km
Magnitude: 2.4 – 23km WNW of Forks, Washington
Time: 2013-11-05 06:52:46 UTC-08:00
Location: 48.024°N 124.678°W
Depth: 42.1km
This second earthquake was perhaps a “few minutes” before the outage was reported.)
“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.
The next steps will be assessing how far the damage goes within the fiber and positioning the barge for placing the anchors as early as late afternoon Tuesday. Once the barge is in place, splicing the new fiber to the severed lines will begin. Survey work has begun to identify where to lay the new cable.
About CenturyLink
CenturyLink is the third largest telecommunications company in the United States and is recognized as a leader in the network services market by technology industry analyst firms. The company is a global leader in cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions for enterprise customers. CenturyLink provides data, voice and managed services in local, national and select international markets through its high-quality advanced fiber optic network and multiple data centers for businesses and consumers. The company also offers advanced entertainment services under the CenturyLink® Prism™ TV and DIRECTV brands. Headquartered in Monroe, La., CenturyLink is an S&P 500 company and is included among the Fortune 500 list of America’s largest corporations. For more information, visit www.centurylink.com.
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Typical that we get finally get word from someone in “Marketing and Media Relations” at CenturyLink.
Yep, I’ll say it again-
The Centurylink tag line extolling the virtues of their “high quality advanced fiber optic network” is insulting to the people of San Juan County.
You can have your media people spin it however you would like, but a magnitude 2.4 earthquake should not devastate a “high quality, advanced” network.
Sorry Centurylink… Try again, but this time without the tag line! Perhaps you and AT&T can review the story above about the guys from Sprint. Now there’s a company with a proactive, customer first attitude. No marketing, just action!
Nothing has highlighted CenturyLink’s complete incompetence and/or disregard for our county better than the excellent self-sufficient folks at our first responders, OPALCO, and community. Why can’t we take CenturyLink out of our equation?
Centurylink’s comments about how big and wonderful they are are quite depressing given the snafu.
I just got my bill … for the full amount. I hope we see some kind of adjustment for the time phones were out. It would just be right.
Everyone should be aware that CenturyLink currently has a petition before the the Washington state Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) to release it from regulation. It is telling the UTC that it no longer needs to be regulated because there is so much competition (?!).
Please let the UTC and your state representatives know what you think of CenturyLink. This outage due to lack of maintenance and redundancy is only one symptom of their bad management. Any time there is a problem, try dialing their number and getting a real person.
Remember that the reason you have phone service today is because of OPALCO, not CenturyLink. After you write the UTC, please do everything you can to support a real communications alternative in the San Juans – OPALCO.
The only news I had about this entire mess was from the gossip section in produce at Island Market and the OIFR emails. Century Link thought it appropriate to let us know what’s up after things got going again. I hate to bring up the old days but local works with consideration for the people that need the news.
Please read and respond to Barbara Keller’s
post.
Linda
Dr. Greene, the geologist presenting Seadoc’s opening lecture of this season, said in response to questions posed about the possibility of earthquakes causing the break, said he did not believe that such a small quake would cause the damage. He also ventured a thought, that if the cable had been buried rather than just left to lie on the seafloor, this could have been avoided.
As this comment is late (today is Friday, 15th), it may not be noticed. However, the best reason for the break came in Wednesday’s Journal cartoon: 2 orcas, pausing after cutting the cable with a hacksaw; one saying,”Do you think the hairy apes will blame us?”. The other, “Nah, we’re good, they’ll blame one of those $#%& boats”.