Comcast estimates we have about 17,000 customers without service today, mostly due to power-related issues. In Pierce County, we’ll be working to reconnect more than 300 individual lines between homes and our plant. In East and South King County, they’ll be rehanging more than 500 of these lines. There and at hundreds of homes in Thurston County, we will be focusing on areas listed in yesterday’s last report, below.
There are still some areas without power. What we’re doing today is driving those areas and trying to identify Comcast plant damage. In some cases, we can’t actually repair damage until power companies finish work on their lines. But we’re hoping to get the repairs done today that can be safely completed so that Comcast services comes up when the electricity returns.
We know many people are frustrated. So are we, because this was a nasty storm with profound power-related problems. We’re out there, and are working to achieve the goal of fully restoring service to all our customers as quickly as possible.
Note: You are welcome to leave comments at this post, but we don’t monitor this site 24/7 for purposes of customer service. If you have a customer service question or report, call us at 1-800-COMCAST, email us at we_can_help (‘at’ symbol) cable.comcast.com, or reach out via Twitter to @ComcastCares. Please DO NOT use this WordPress site to report an outage.
Monday afternoon update: The numbers continue to improve; we now show about 25,000 customers without service, the vast majority of which are customers affected by power issues. That said, we know if you are one of those customers without service, the situation is not OK. We will continue to work hard today, and throughout this week as power returns, to get everyone on the network.
Here are some updates from our regional offices whose areas were hardest-hit by the storm and ice. Just because we don’t list an area doesn’t mean it isn’t getting attention. We just asked our field supervisors to list some of the places where crews spent time today, will spend time tonight and if needed, spend time tomorrow. The video above gives you just a sampling of what’s going through the minds of Comcasters (and customers).
Thurston County office (based in Olympia):
We’ve brought in crews from as far away as Everett to fix individual outages and plant damage in all corners of the county. Among the challenging areas we have tackled today and continue to tackle: the areas known as East, Northwest, Northeast and Southeast Olympia, Steamboat Island, Tumwater, Lacey, Yelm, Littlerock and Tenino. We’ve been doing a lot of work in Rochester, Shelton, and the Centralia-Chehalis area. We are repairing damage we know about, and also awaiting fresh reports: every time power comes up, there’s a chance people will realize their Comcast service has not returned and there’s separate cable damage.
King County office (based in Auburn)
Among the areas we’re working are places with the power back up include Federal Way; the Maple Valley\Black Diamond\surrounding County areas and Kent and Kent Vista. We are also in many other individual communities repairing both network damage and individual lines, in communities such as Auburn, Algona, Black Diamond, Cedar Downs, Des Moines, Enumclaw, Issaquah, Maple Valley, Newcastle, North Bend, Renton and Whitecenter.
Among the areas where power is still coming up and we’d love to be doing more are the eastern side of Renton to the Issaquah/Hobart Road, as well as the Fall City area.
Pierce County (based in Puyallup):
Crews were swarming in several badly hit areas, including South Prairie, Bonney Lake, Edgewood, Graham, Lakewood, Prairie Ridge and Roy.
If your community is not listed in this summary but is in East or South King, or the Thurston or Pierce County areas, there’s a good chance someone from Comcast was there today.
- We continue to have to follow after power crews as they have to repair lines first for safety reasons. As long as power is out in some areas, we’re going to have customers out in some areas. Then there’s a lag, because it’s only when the power comes back up that someone might realize that their Comcast service has been damaged.
- If your power is on but your cable is out, it could be because there’s damage to the electrical grid around you that affects service in your area. We’re sorry when that happens.
Note: You are welcome to leave comments at this post, but we don’t monitor this site 24/7 for purposes of customer service. If you have a customer service question or report, call us at 1-800-COMCAST, email us at we_can_help (‘at’ symbol) cable.comcast.com, or reach out via Twitter to @ComcastCares. Please DO NOT use this WordPress site to report an outage.
Monday morning, we again have 800 employees in the field. They are doing everything from repairing damage to 181 pieces of equipment to reconnecting lines to hundreds of individual homes.
We are following behind electrical crews, since we need them to do their work first. As we’ve said in the posts below, it’s often only when power returns that the total damage to an area becomes clear. So we know there is more damage out there that has not been identified but that we’re staffed to tackle when power comes back up.
We’re all very glad that some of the predictions of high winds Sunday night did not materialize. We are being extra careful out there, because the roads are very icy Monday morning.
As we’ve done on previous days, we’re shifting employees from regions that got less storm damage to areas that got more. For example, we’ve moved employees from Everett, Aberdeen and Bremerton to Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater and the rest of Thurston County. We’ve also got 24 contractors working in Thurston County today. Our Seattle office sent several people, including their head tech supervisor, to Pierce County to help there.
Our Spokane and Bellingham offices sent techs to East and South King County. In that area alone, we plan to re-hang and reconnect more than 600 individual lines today between individual homes and the main lines.
Please see our posts below for more information about how we’re working to restore service.
Note: You are welcome to leave comments at this post, but we don’t monitor this site 24/7 for purposes of customer service. If you have a customer service question or report, call us at 1-800-COMCAST, email us at we_can_help (‘at’ symbol) cable.comcast.com, or reach out via Twitter to @ComcastCares. Please DO NOT use this WordPress site to report an outage.
We have just more than 100,000 customers who are without service (2 p.m. update: the number is now about 85,000). This is down from a high of more than 250,000 at the height of the storm. The vast majority of these customers will see their services return once power is restored. Our crews are currently working to make repairs at approximately 200 locations along several thousand miles of lines. In addition, we have hundreds of technicians repairing more than 2,000 individual lines between homes and the network.
In all, we have about 800 workers in the field this Sunday.
It is important to note that due to safety reasons, our network repair technicians can’t begin their work until the power company completes its work and gives us the all clear. With more repair crews arriving daily, we have been able to closely follow the power company and begin our work almost immediately after power is restored.
But let’s get to your real question …
When will you restore my service?
Normally, this is an easy answer. When our technician comes to your home, more often than not he or she can tell you when they can have your service back up and running.
After a major storm, however, when conditions are continuing to change and much of our work depends on the power company completing its work, the answer becomes much more difficult. Rather than mislead you, we may honestly say “we don’t know.”
In general, we make the repairs that affect the most people first. Other considerations are whether the roads are driveable, if it is safe for our crews to enter an area or whether the power company has given us the all clear to do our work.
This business is not an exact science. We’re out there doing our best, doing things right, and sometimes making mistakes like any humans. We do know our people passionately want to get your service back up. As we like to say, we know the most important outage number is one—that’s your home.
Note: You are welcome to leave comments at this post, but we don’t monitor this site 24/7 for purposes of customer service. If you have a customer service question or report, call us at 1-800-COMCAST, email us at we_can_help (‘at’ symbol) cable.comcast.com, or reach out via Twitter to @ComcastCares, or call us. Please DO NOT use this WordPress site to report an outage.
Comcast Communications Technician Rick McLachlin rises to the occasion on a chilly early Saturday morning on Auburn Way in Auburn.
Comcast has about 800 employees in the field throughout Western Washington and Spokane this Saturday morning, as we all recover from the storm. Yesterday, we showed about 260,000 customers without service; as of mid-Saturday morning, we show 160,000. Most of that is due to power returning, as we explain in the post below.
The storm clearly whacked some areas more than others, so we’ve sent Seattle employees into Pierce County and Aberdeen employees into Thurston County to help out. Other crews have come up from California to get a little taste of Washington weather. We look forward to many people receiving services again today; if your service is not back yet, we beg for your patience.
Please see the post below for a lot more info. Two quick tips: One of the biggest frustrations for people is when they have power but not cable service; the post below talks about that situation and what to do. Also, sometimes what your modem needs is an old-fashioned powercycle to kick it back into work: here’s a video showing how to power-cycle your modem. Note: You are welcome to leave comments at this post, but we don’t monitor this site 24/7 for purposes of customer service. If you have a customer service question or report, feel free to email us at we_can_help (‘at’ symbol) cable.comcast.com, reach out via Twitter to @ComcastCares, or call us.
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