LUTHERAN QUILTERS – Members of the Quilts for Comfort Group stand between pews draped with some of the 205 quilts they made, in the Sitka Lutheran Church Tuesday. The group made the quilts for five local non-profits and one in Anchorage. The remaining quilts are sent to Lutheran World Relief which distributes them to places around the world in need, such as Ukraine, as part of Personal Care Kits. Pictured are, from left, Helen Cunningham, Kathleen Brandt,Vicki Swanson, Paulla Hardy, Kim Hunter, Linda Swanson and Sue Fleming. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
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Sitka police received the following calls by 8 a.m. today:
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This Week in Girls on the Run
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Sitka police received the following calls by 8 a.m. today:
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At 2:10 p.m. a man e [ ... ]
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Daily Sitka Sentinel
Douglas House Fire Leads To SE Internet, TV Outage
By TOM HESSE
Sentinel Staff Writer
A house fire on Douglas Island and a failed backup system are to blame for an internet and TV outage that affected Sitka and the rest of Southeast Thursday night.
The outage involved both GCI and Alaska Communications and left Sitka residents without internet, TV or mobile phone data from around 7:30 p.m. Thursday to 5:18 a.m. today, GCI Vice President David Morris said.
“It was caused by a house fire on North Douglas, and there was an aerial span of coax (cable) and fiber,” Morris said. “The house was close enough to that aerial span that it melted the thing.”
Morris said multiple backups are in place for such an event, but the switch worked correctly, and that’s where the problem occurred. Normally, services would automatically switch to a different system.
“It didn’t switch at the right time. It did a partial switch several hours later,” Morris said.
A third satellite system also didn’t pick up the system. Morris said phone calls and simple texts still went through but television, internet and mobile data weren’t functioning. No injuries were reported in the fire that caused the outage.
Hannah Blankenship, associate manager of corporate communications for ACS, said the outage affected around 1,000 customers in Sitka. ACS service was restored around 6 a.m.
A few GCI services were restored by 2 a.m. today, but the system wasn’t returned to normal until around 5 a.m. Morris said GCI is focusing attention on finding why the switching to the backup systems failed.
“The big thing for us is why the redundant routing didn’t switch when it was supposed to,” he said.
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20 YEARS AGO
March 2004
Advertisement: Tea-Licious Tea House & Bakery 315 Lincoln Street Grand Opening! Freshly Baked Scones, Cakes & Pastries Innovative Salads, Soups & Sandwiches Harney & Sons Tea. Lunch * Afternoon Tea * Supper.
50 YEARS AGO
March 1974
Photo caption: National Republican Chairman George Bush takes a drink of water offered by Jan Craddick, Sitka delegate, during the Republican convention held here. Mrs. Craddick explained to Bush that the water was from Indian River, which means, according to local legend, that he will return.