Widespread internet outage leads to frustration, questions on Tiburon Peninsula

A widespread internet, phone and cable outage that struck the Tiburon Peninsula Nov. 8 left residents lamenting their loss of service, scratching their heads about what triggered the blackout and questioning the vulnerability of Marin’s communications systems.

Tiburon town officials said the midday outage was caused by a traffic collision near Highway 101 and affected customers of Comcast’s Xfinity network and AT&T, with service expected to be restored by 5 p.m. But as the day progressed — and the target hour for restored service passed — a string of massive Comcast outages began to spring up across Marin and the rest of the Bay Area about 9:40 p.m., ultimately hitting tens of thousands of customers between Santa Cruz and Sacramento. Large outages continued across the U.S. throughout the evening, hitting Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia and New Jersey.

Joan Hammel, senior director of external communications for Comcast’s California region, said the broader evening outages were the result of a “network issue” but didn’t provide additional details — including whether the Tiburon accident knocked out service locally in the first place.

About noon Nov. 8, posts began popping up on online neighborhood forum Nextdoor.com from Belvedere and Tiburon residents reporting that their internet, cable and, in some cases, phone service was failing. An outage alert sent out by the town of Tiburon about 2:30 p.m. noted an accident on the highway had knocked the traffic signals at Tiburon Boulevard and Blackfield Drive offline and caused a “major power and communications” outage in many parts of Tiburon and Belvedere.

According to an incident log from the Southern Marin Fire Protection District, a truck struck a utility pole on Highway 101 about noon, causing the lines to fall across all northbound and southbound lanes of the highway and causing a three-car accident on the northbound side.

Town officials noted multiple crews from Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Caltrans, Comcast and AT&T were working to restore electricity, get traffic signals up and running again and repair overhead lines.

PG&E spokesman J.D. Guidi said the power outage affected seven local customers and repairs to the lines were completed by 4:49 p.m. It’s unclear when internet, cable and phone service were restored, though most customers reported the outages had resolved by the morning of Nov. 9.

Comcast’s outage maps are typically highly localized and give broad ranges of the number of customers affected. However, Downdetector.com, which doesn’t reflect official complaints but lets users of many types of services report outages, showed some 25,940 reports of Comcast outages about 10 p.m. Nov. 8. The next day about 6 a.m., that number had risen to 53,580 reports. Complaints to Downdetector then tapered off as the issue was resolved.

In Marin, the evening outage caused so much confusion that some law-enforcement agencies were flooded with 911 calls from people asking for updates and explanations as to why their internet wasn’t working. The Marin County Sheriff’s Office got enough of those calls that it posted to Twitter about 10:30 p.m. telling people to call their internet provider, not 911, with questions about why their service was out.

As Comcast internet went out, people turned to their cell services’ data plans to get online, attempting to use it for anything from simple browsing to video streaming to a hotspot for their other devices during the workday. But that immediately crippled cellular networks on the Tiburon Peninsula, slowing even basic browsing to a crawl and raising questions about the ability to communicate, or even call for help, during an outage — let alone during a disaster.

Sgt. Brenton Schneider, the public information officer for the Sheriff’s Office, said 911 calls are prioritized on all cellular networks. If one network goes down the caller won’t be able to use it to make the call, but a 911 call will use any available network, regardless of the caller’s carrier. So, even if the internet is down or one or more cellular networks are compromised, people will usually be able to call in an emergency.

However, Laurie Nilsen, Tiburon’s emergency-services coordinator, said if 911 dispatchers are flooded with non-emergency calls, like they were during the outage, it could cause an issue for law enforcement because they have to sift through more calls to identify true emergencies.

“If people clog up (the 911 line) asking when the power is coming back on, then people with real emergencies may not be able to get through,” Nilsen said in an interview. “(The line) may not ring busy, but there are only so many people on the other end to answer the lines, so (callers) might be put on hold or not be picked up right away.”

Nilsen noted, though, that outages like last week’s don’t normally impact emergency response because police and fire agencies don’t just rely on one mode of communication. She said if computers and internet go down, police can handle things manually, whether that be by going out in person to check on situations or using radios, which don’t rely on an internet connection, to communicate.

“We’re going to keep on functioning no matter what, because we have backup plans,” Nilsen said.

Deputy Fire Marshall Mike Lantier of the Tiburon Fire Protection District said in an interview his agency also has forms of backup to continue normal operations during an internet or power outage. The district uses Cradlepoint, a cloud-based system that utilizes multiple internet and cellular networks so first responders can still communicate and send updates even if one network goes down.

“Internet itself going down is really just an inconvenience,” Lantier said.

Tiburon and Belvedere residents echoed that sentiment, taking to Nextdoor.com during the outage to share their frustrations.

“Annoying,” wrote Tiburon resident Michael Moradzadeh in response to a post about the outage that said more than 2,500 local residents were without service.

“How is it that the Belvedere-Tiburon communications infrastructure is so fragile?” Tiburon resident Christina Campany commented on a different post.

Tiburon Mayor Holli Thier said improving that infrastructure is the goal of a recently approved broadband internet project the town is planning. In August, the Town Council approved a $93,750 contract with Magellan Advisors, a Denver-based fiber, wireless and broadband consulting company that works with local governments to help them implement a sturdier internet infrastructure in the cities and towns they serve. As a part of the agreement, Magellan will perform a seven-month study determining the best system for Tiburon.

Thier noted because broadband internet is usually undergrounded and utilizes a larger network than normal internet cable hubs, the town would be relatively insulated from outages like last week’s and wouldn’t be as vulnerable to things like trucks tearing down the cables.

“I really believe that (broadband) is like water, power and sewer,” Thier said. “Government needs to provide the infrastructure to let companies come in and compete … so we can figure out how we can improve service for our residents.”

Executive Editor Kevin Hessel contributed to this report. Reach Belvedere and public-safety reporter Shayne Jones at 415-944-4627.