Washington Storm Update: Nov. 18, 2015

damage to a pole in Olympia

4 p.m. update

We estimate more than 96 spans of line and fiber fell down during the storm, nearly half of them in Spokane and nearly all due to trees. It’s been all-hands-on-deck today as 909 Comcast employees and contractors work to restore services. Please see below for other updates.

The Comcast office in Portland is sending a half dozen techs to work through the night in the hard-hit portions of the Redmond area. We’re using this help, and also shifting some other resources, in order to send several techs over to Spokane, which suffered significant wind damage.

Sometimes people ask why we do not provide ETAs on this site. As we posted below, we have to wait to address a significant number of areas until power crews declare the areas safe. It’s only when electrical crews have finished their repair and restoration that we can move in and make our own repairs. And sometimes this creates a lag time between the restoration of power and restoration of other services because we can’t see what needs repair until then. This makes it hard to offer a reliable ETA.

See below for other updates and for photos.

Noon update

As we posted below, more than 900 Comcast employees and contractors work to restore services to our customers. In many places, they are deploying and maintaining generators to help keep the network going as other crews do their repairs.

Please see below for information about what to do after a storm. Most of the time, your service should come back up when power comes back up.

7:40 a.m. update

It’s all-hands-on-deck as 909 Comcast employees and contractors work to restore services to our customers. We had people working throughout the night to assess and repair damage and maintain the network with generators and other equipment. Fresh crews began work at 4 a.m.

Yesterday, we completed 1,200 appointments, 99 percent on time despite the storm, and restored more than 200 instances of damaged lines to houses. But as you can imagine from today’s news reports and what you’re seeing on social media, there’s a lot more damage out there.

Thanks usually to the wind and trees, there are at least 46 spans of our lines down around the state, nearly half of those in the Spokane area.

During the recovery phase after this record storm, safety is the top concern. That means we may have to wait to address certain areas until power crews declare the areas safe. It’s only when electrical crews have finished their repair and restoration that we can move in and make our own repairs. Sometimes this creates a lag time between the restoration of power and restoration of other services.

More than 99 percent of the time, when your power comes up, your Xfinity products and services come back up. it’s good to perform a powercycle to “freshen up” the equipment. On some occasions, you may have power at home but not Comcast services. This is usually due to damage in the network around you. Both power crews and our crews are working to restore services to everyone. We are grateful for your faith and patience.

We remain committed to restoring service in the most safe and timely manner possible.  ​Our dedicated team of technicians, engineers and customer care representatives are working overtime to restore services to each and every Comcast customer.


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