Comcast technicians in Oregon and SW Washington are working as quickly and safely as possible to restore your connection.
“Salem looks like what you’d see after a tornado or hurricane.” That’s the blunt assessment from Travis Thetford, VP of Technical Operations for Comcast Oregon/SW Washington. The snowstorm mixed with freezing rain has resulted in tens of thousands of Comcast customers without service due to downed trees and utility lines. Some areas, like Salem, were especially hard hit. “Ice is worse for us than snow,” reminds Thetford.
Thetford reports that the Eugene area is in good shape, and Corvallis has some issues due to tree limbs taking our power lines. The West Hills of Portland and East Portland are also problematic. “So many of the side roads are inaccessible,” says Thetford. “It’s making service restoration difficult.”
To effort repairs, Thetford is re-deploying our Eugene-based technicians to assist Salem. And he is calling on some of Comcast’s business partners, like Spectra, to bring in crews from out of state. Those technicians will augment our own stable of 150 techs out in the field, coordinating with our public utility partners, to effect repairs.
“We need to come in right behind the utilities,” says Thetford. “They have to give us the green light that it’s safe for our crews to work on the lines.” And he points out that coordination is especially important if the utilities need to trim tree limbs. “If we get service back up and they cut down a limb and it takes out our line, we just need to start over.”
Some customers may have power, but not internet. “Our network grid and the power grid don’t necessarily line up,” says Joe Mitchell, Director of Network Maintenance. “That can be caused by physical damage to our outside service lines. Due to the intelligence of our network, we have a high degree of visibility into customer outages, and our crews are working around the clock to restore service as quickly as possible.”
Living without your internet is challenging, but patience is the key as our crews work night and day in challenging conditions to bring you back online.
