Guest Column – Internet & Phone Services Down

San Juan Update guest columnist Mike Martin checks in with this report about today’s phone and internet outage:

San Juan Island’s internet and telephone service was interrupted for approximately 4 hours today, [Ed. note: Mike wrote this before we all knew the extent of the outage] forcing many islanders to work an entire morning and briefly returning to productivity levels not seen since the mid 90’s.

One driver in downtown Friday Harbor reported that turn signals were used with the suddenly free hand. In an unrelated incident, a pedestrian stated that he suddenly felt safe when crossing Spring Street as he observed drivers looking at the road instead of their mobile devices.

Elsewhere downtown people were seen greeting each other.

In other news, reports are saying that island youths sat on the same couch and watched the same TV programs as their parents while they all awaited the restoration of their phone and data services.

It wasn’t all good news though as many off island romances came to an end as texts, Instagrams and Facebook messages went unrequited.

******

And in response to Mike’s column here, an alert Update reader in Oregon has this to say:

Hi,

I read your little article a few minutes ago and had a good laugh. Thanks for brightening my day. I live in a wheat field in Eastern Oregon and we don’t get much excitement around here. Except when some jerk digs a hole for a fence post and nicks a fiber-optic. Or when a pheasant flies into an electrical wire that feeds the whole town of Heppner.
But I just wanted to say your article was top notch!

R.

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