Residents of portions of the Mendenhall Valley in Juneau, as well as Haines and Skagway have been dealing with weak or no cell service this week after a fiber line was severed during Juneau’s destructive glacial outburst flood on Aug. 13.
The flood, triggered by the release of water from Suicide Basin into the Mendenhall River, damaged critical communications infrastructure, leaving major carriers scrambling to restore service to northern Southeast Alaska. Customers with AT&T, Verizon, GCI, and other providers have reported widespread outages and interruptions. Service has been impacted on the Back Loop Road in Juneau, where the Mendenhall Back Loop Bridge was also damaged by the flooding, with repairs scheduled to start Saturday.
AT&T customers in Skagway are expected to remain without service until approximately Aug. 28. Other carriers have not provided clear restoration timelines but have acknowledged that the fiber break is to blame.
Both Haines and Skagway rely heavily on the single fiber route through Juneau for connectivity. The outage has not only left residents without reliable mobile service but also raised concerns about public safety and communications in the event of emergencies. 911 calls in Skagway will still reach the local police station.
The Aug. 13 flooding in Valley neighborhoods along the Mendenhall River was mitigated by large Hasco barriers put in place that prevented overflow to a certain extent, but may have made the main channel of the river more powerful and damaging to the cable that runs across it near the mouth of the river.
Well let’s think about this. The river normally flows about 5-6000 CFS (cubic feet per second). It can sort of handle up to 17,000 CFS. Now it just flowed at 52,000 CFS and they tried to contain it all in the same channel. Gee whiz, do you suppose any channel changes will occur? If the levee and flow control structure aren’t built the entire valley and airport are at risk. An estimated 5 billion dollars as well as lives at risk. Let us pray that our delegation can push the Corps across te finish line and get the work strted.
Or move the Capital and let Juno “shrink away” from that flood zone.
Dang, Suzanne. Prayers for everyone in the area.
That darn Suicide Basin in the news again! Dangerous place to live! Wonder why they call it Suicide Basin?
Just one more reason that they should have Starlink, at 10% of the cost of hardwired internet that is susceptible to the whims of Mother Nature.
USACE, USGS and SoA-DOT might want to coordinate forces // resources // SME’s to analyze high-potential current threats to infrastructure due to melting glaciers and thawing permafrost … Roads, Bridges, Rail Roads, Power Transmission – Distribution Lines (including Towers – Poles), Fiber Optic Cables – Trunk Lines, Gas Lines, etc. Identifying critical infrastructure in harm’s way, catching early enough, might prove to be beneficial to develop mitigation plans. It would also build confidence in the general public that these institutions are worthy and in-the-public’s best interest.
Why are all those liberals living there?
Don’t they know about global warming & melting glaciers?
Give it back to Nature Junoites ….. move the Capital (to a normal town)