Power has just been restored (1:30 am). We were into hour 30 of the blackout when the crews reached us. Our area was among the worst hit.
A few observations:
- Phone and cel service are still running fine. Our wireless broadband is off the air. Our favourite local radio station was unable to put the wattage in our cottage for much of the day.
- The repair teams are working around the clock – getting very little sleep. I had a chance to speak with the guys who cut apart a formerly beautiful yellow birch that had been blocking our road and resting on the wires that feed our place. There is a real sense of duty – coupled with lousy coffee – that keeps them going on 3 hours of sleep.
- While governments are looking at ways to extend broadband to rural and remote regions, this power outage, on the heels of the Sault Ste Marie fibre cut highlight the vulnerability of our infrastructure. Reliability should be of equal concern to governments, including the public safety ministries.
At the very least, perhaps as part of the annual data collection process for the monitoring report, all carriers should inform the Commission about events that cause a service disruption to a pre-determined sized group of customers.
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power, Sault Ste Marie, infrastructure, fibre cut