Finally Back!!!!!!

Its been really hard being without phones or internet.  If you saw my entry Saturday, you know the landlines came up, well mostly and the internet at the school came up, for the most part but nothing else was up until about 7 PM our time last night.

Our village wasn't the only one out.  The next village over about 18 miles away lost all their cell phones, landlines, and internet too.  Apparently, there was a small piece on one of the relay's.

A bit more before I describe what it took to get things up and running.  With no cell phone, landlines, or internet, the planes couldn't come because there was no way they could check to see if the runway was clear without flying out and getting close enough to call the village by VHF.

Our kids were due to travel over to another village but couldn't contact them for an updated weather report so they went on blind faith. Hoping it wasn't bad over there.  That village, SB, was the only one with the ability to phone out.  They were also closest to the relay tower that needed repairing.

Since we couldn't contact the phone company to tell them to switch our internet over to the satellite, we had to send an employee over there by snow machine.  It took him about an hour each way. They were aware of the outage but couldn't do much about it because the part needed to switch our signal to satellite had been used  the last time we had issues with the relays.  So he had to jury rig something to get it.

In the meantime, the phone company was supposed to send the part and technicians into SB to fix things but weather there is always problematic so there was no guarantee anyone could get there.  I think they got someone in because late Friday night, the landlines finally came up, mostly.  Direct dial worked well but you couldn't call  any 1-800 numbers.

Anyone calling in, might or might not make it, depending.  I had someone trying to call me but it took them some time and multiple tries.  The agent for one of the airlines, promptly came over and borrowed the school phone to call Bethel for updates on his airlines.

The internet also came up but it was irregular in that it would be nice then slow down to a crawl but it only worked at the school, not anywhere else.  If anyone wanted to use the internet, they had to go over to the school to use the computers in the Library.  Not much fun because the only people at school over the weekend were teachers.

I think it was about 7:10 last night, I heard a funny beep, beep from my cell phone.  It delivered the text's people sent while everything was down.  It was awesome to discover I could get out.  I promptly told my neighbor and he called his wife.  He's the one who told me the lines were up at the school and to use his phone to call my family, letting them know I was alive.  When the cell phones were not working, he had to go over to the school to call his wife, now he could call her from home.

Its really difficult when all forms of communication were down.  I'm told the clinic has a satellite phone just in case of emergencies like this but they don't use it very often.  The bad thing, is with no planes flying, no one could get in or out and its been quiet.  One of my coworkers was going crazy because she had to go without texting for several days.  She was undergoing cell phone withdrawal.

Tomorrow I should be back to normal with topics.  I hope you never have to undergo what I did.  Have a great day and let me know what you think.