Time-Lapse Video of Comcast Storm Repairs in January 2012

One of the communications technicians based in our Auburn offices, Brian Farchette, is pretty handy with a camera. Now that the storm repairs are well under control, Brian had time to go back over some video he filmed in the aftermath of the January 2012 winter mess in Puget Sound. What he gives us on the video above is a glimpse into what it was like out there in the cold. We hope you find the video interesting. The time-lapse part begins about a minute and 30 seconds into the video.

If you go to the original YouTube page, Brian gives a special shout-out to the employees from Spokane who came over the mountains to help their brethen. Everyone in Western Washington appreciated their help!

We were all glad the storm only damaged certain areas and not others: employees in less-damaged areas such as Spokane, Bellingham, Aberdeen, Everett and Seattle quickly spread through other areas to help with the massive recovery effort. We also had crews from California helping for some time.

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 Storm Repair Update from Comcast

If you have any storm-related damage that’s still affecting your service, please call us at 1-800-COMCAST. As we’ve said in some previous posts: One thing we would NOT want to have happen is to have your Comcast cable line on the ground, and for us not know about it.

Sunday, we had about 50 people call us about their lines in South and East King County and about 13 in Thurston County; if we should be out fixing your lines, please let us know. If you had any problem getting through when we received a lot of calls during the storm, please accept our apologies and call us again. In the meantime, what we’re doing today is revisiting some of the damage that we repaired in a hurry and making more lasting repairs.

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.

Thursday Storm Repair Update from Comcast

fallen power pole

Our crews were still seeing sights like this Wednesday in some parts of Washington as roads were reopened and the power company declared the electricity back up and lines safe to work on. This photo was taken in Thurston County.

 Thanks to the return of electricity and hard work by our teams, Comcast estimates the number of customers without service is about 800. This is down from about 260,000 at the height of the storm’s effects. 

 In King County, as customers have been calling in reports of damage, we’re going to reconnect and re-hang more than 450 lines back to homes. We hung 575 lines yesterday. The power seems to have gone out again in parts of North Bend, so we’ll be back up there too. One bit of good news is that all the roads are reopened, so access is certainly a lot easier than it has been on other days.

In Thurston County, we’re still getting calls from customers of lines down as the power comes back up, and people discover problems.  In Pierce County, we’re in cleanup mode, but part of Roy lost some power last night and so we’re back there today. We’re proactively driving in areas where customers may not have reported trouble yet, and are working more than 100 reports of lines still down in Pierce County today.

Meantime, winds hit parts of Bellingham, and after the power comes back on we’ll make sure service is back to normal there too. 

 If you have any doubt whether your outage is reported, please call us at 1-800-COMCAST. One thing we would NOT want to have happen is to have your Comcast cable line on the ground, and for us not know about it.

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.

Wednesday Morning Storm Repairs Report from Comcast


The video above is a short status report of Comcast repairs to storm damage by Communications Technician Rick McLachlin, filmed last night before the winds by Communications Technician Brian Farchette.

Last night’s storms didn’t do anyone any favors. Before the winds, we estimated that about 6,000 customers were without Comcast service while awaiting power or further repairs. This morning, we estimate about 12,000 are without service. This is mostly because of fresh damage to the power companies’ networks.

Last week’s snow and ice clearly weakened trees and branches. Last night’s fresh winds knocked many branches onto power and cable lines. Or entire trees fell over; both we and Puget Sound Energy sustained damage in Orting, where crews are working hard to restore service. There was other fresh damage in parts of Seattle, Mercer Island and in East and South King County.

We continue to shift people as needed in the worst-hit areas. For example, Seattle- and Everett-based employees are working today in Thurston County, tackling both the old and new damage. We also have employees from our Spokane operation and contractors from California helping us repair downed lines and other damage caused by the storms in the Auburn and South King County areas.

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.

Tuesday’s Second Storm Repairs Report from Comcast

Comcast estimates that about 7,000 customers are without service as of Tuesday evening, mostly because of issues related to power. Today, we saw significant improvement in several areas,  including much of Pierce County. But we also know some people are still reporting problems, particularly with individual cable lines to their homes.

In Thurston County, we’ve been addressing places ranging from very rural parts of the county to the area around The Evergreen State College and other parts of Olympia, Tumwater, Grand Mound and Littlerock. To be a little more specific, we spent a lot of time at Littlerock Road SW; the Cedar Flats SW area off Delhi Road; Johnson Point Road NE, South Bay Road NE, Tilley Road S and Carpenter Road SE.  Storm repairs by someone else damaged some of our equipment on Shincke Rd NE, but we’re there and expect to return service by mid-evening.

In East and King County, we’ve been working in Kent and Kent Vista, Algona, Covington, Central Des Moines, Maple Valley and North Bend. We also have some scattered outages – but we know they’re important if you are in one – in places like Auburn and Federal Way. With power still being restored, we have about a dozen generators in the fiel. But we know some customers might still be affected by these network issues even if the power is on at their homes.

One thing we’ve heard from some customers is they didn’t feel assured when they called us that they had been able to report their outage. If you have any doubt whether your outage is reported, please call us at 1-800-COMCAST. One thing we would NOT want to have happen is to have your Comcast cable line on the ground, and for us not know about it.

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.

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