The Alaska Legislature is in a special session, and most of the work is being done by the finance committees. The regular session ended on May 20. Independent Representative Rebecca Himschoot of Sitka says she’s glad Southeast’s Senator Bert Stedman, who co-chairs the Senate Finance Committee, is part of the special session negotiations. They’re focusing on a gas pipeline, and she says the senator, quote: “has our back.”

Himschoot represents Sitka, Petersburg, and small towns from Yakutat down to Prince of Wales Island – 22 in all. In an interview with CoastAlaska’s Angela Denning, she says there was a lot of teamwork in the regular session. But she’s frustrated that two bills that were supported statewide were vetoed by the governor – the pension bill for state employees and the election reform bill. Now, she hopes the omnibus crime bill does get the governor’s approval.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Himschoot: I have no complaints about how the session went. I think there was a lot of teamwork going on and good alignment between the two bodies for the most part on most issues. What I’m most proud of is the three major bills that passed, and what I’m most frustrated about is that two of those were vetoed and we were unable to override those vetoes. So, the one that I have been deeply engaged with is the Public Pensions Bill, House Bill 78. Since 2006, we have not offered any kind of competitive retirement system for state employees, so those are emergency personnel, teachers, etc. And we finally got a bill across both bodies that would restore a pension that is not, as I’ll just say, not as rich as the pension that a Tier One person would remember getting, or even a Tier Two, which is the pension I’m in. But it would make Alaska somewhat more competitive with other states, and we have a really tight labor market in a lot of those state positions, and I’m, of course, most familiar with teaching. So, anything we can do to make our teaching positions more competitive with other states, we need to do. And we did pass a pension bill, of course, it was vetoed, and we did not have the votes to override that. And the other bill that got vetoed that I think was a really positive bill for Alaska was Senate Bill 64. It took about 10 years to come to agreement across party lines on an elections bill that would tighten up our voter rolls a little bit. We have the automatic enrollment with the dividend, and so we’re over-enrolled, and so looking for ways to clarify who’s actually a voter in Alaska. It also had a ballot tracking system. I was especially excited about having a rural liaison who could make sure that rural voting places were open and had the right ballots. We’ve had issues with that in the recent past, and so when that got vetoed, it was painful to see all that work, I guess, go down the drain. And the third one is the Omnibus Crime Bill, which is really made up of, I think, a dozen different small crime legislation. And so, the big deal in that one is changing the age of consent from 16 to 18, except for close in age exemptions. And that’s been, I think, a tricky thing to do in Alaska, and it’s, you know, it’s a different number in every state, but 16 is on the low end, and so to move that up, I think, will help with some of our high rates of sexual assault and domestic violence. It also makes it so that AI-generated child sexual abuse material is criminalized, and then there are a whole bunch of other little things that are in there, but I think the huge victory in that bill is changing the age of consent. So, I hope it will get the governor’s support.

CoastAlaska: How does that feel to have dozens of representatives across the state affiliated with different parties, and they come to this more or less consensus on months of this work? And then this governor, he’s vetoed a lot more than other past governors.

Himschoot: I think, in short, the word is frustrating. I talked with a gubernatorial candidate who was recently in Petersburg, and I asked if that person would be interested in changing the override threshold, because Alaska has the highest in the nation threshold for overriding on appropriations, and I asked if this person would be interested in lowering that threshold and giving the Legislature more of a say, and I loved the answer, which was, ‘If I’m doing my job, there won’t be vetoes’, and I like that model of governance where the governor is present and actively engaged in helping to form ideas. You know, we talk about the 61st vote, 21 of 40 in the House, 11 of 20 in the Senate, and then you’ve got that 61st vote, and if you don’t have that vote, you end up with all these vetoes, but it’s really difficult to negotiate a direction that would make a bill agreeable to the governor if the governor is not there, and not engaged, and so the short answer is, it’s incredibly frustrating, and it makes it difficult to want to keep working on things, because you just really don’t know what’s going to happen in the end.

CoastAlaska: And kind of along those lines, moving on to education, which is, you know, you, your career was in education for decades.  At this point, we have what the Legislature approved, right? What you, as lawmakers, agreed to. So, first, like, how do you feel about what you agreed to? And then, secondly, we don’t know at this point, right, what the governor might do or not do.

Himschoot: I’m excited about what was approved with the caveat that one-time funding is just generally not as reliable for school districts. So it, you know, it helps in a pinch. No district is unhappy to get the additional support, but it isn’t something you can go to the bank on. You can’t retain programs – you can for a year – but you can’t really build your bench, you can’t really retain teachers and work with them to help them become better teachers, because you just don’t know, you don’t know how long you’ll be able to keep them, so that’s a continuing frustration, but the overall 144 million, if the price of oil stays high, it’s about a third of our budget comes from oil, and so when the prices go up and prices go down, it has a huge impact on what the state can do. But if that price stays solid, it’s, you know, that’s I think it’s about, something like $470 per student when it runs through the formula, so that will be certainly helpful, and the other wonderful thing. House Bill 28 is a bill that does a number of different things in education, but I think the part I’m most excited about is it sets up a formula for funding energy, and so this year I think it’s about 29 million that’s going to go into reimbursing districts for their energy costs, so that’s heat and electricity, and then in the future, the idea, the intent is to fund 100% of those costs, so right now districts are having to pull the money for heating their buildings and the electricity that they use out of the money they get for educating students, the base student allocation, they take that money and they use it for everything in the district, including energy, and this formula allows the Legislature to target one thing and take one thing out of the other funding stream. So, if we’re unable to raise the BSA [Base Student Allocation] significantly, at least more of what we are providing through the BSA will go to classrooms, educators, programs.

CoastAlaska: Is there anything you wanted to touch on for the specific communities that you represent in terms of this year’s session?

Himschoot: You know, there’s $105 million going into the 33 top school major maintenance projects, and that has, I think, funding for two projects in Petersburg, and funding for a project down in Craig, finishing up their middle school remodel, I think, is where that money is going to go in Craig. And then there’s quite a bit of funding for Mount Edgecumbe High School, and I think everybody can agree some upgrades are needed there, and I think Senator [Bert] Stedman did work with Governor Dunleavy to kind of make sure that the money will go where we’re hoping it will go, and then there’s renewable energy projects. I can’t remember how many we funded, but Petersburg, and I should say, the SEAPA third turbine is in that list, so that was something that they were very worried about. That is included. There’s funding for Stratton Library in Sitka to go to the court system. I think a lot of people in Sitka are curious what’s happening with that building. It’s been sitting empty for quite some time, so it’ll be interesting to see how that develops in the future. The Alaska Seafood Marketing [Institute] is going to get 6 million, and then there’s going to be 6 million, also going to the ATIA, the Alaska Travel Industry Association, I think, and so trying to grow markets, right, trying to grow that seafood market and our tourism market as well. So one of the great things about having a little bump in oil prices, as difficult as that makes things for everyday Alaskans, right. Our cost of living is going to go up, and we feel that in individual household budgets a whole lot. But one of the things that I think is good about our budget is we’re trying to – about the Legislature’s budget this year – is we’re trying to target where the needs are. So, while it’s only $1,000 dividend, that is a kind of a historic average, but then there’s also a $200 energy relief check that will go with that. We also are increasing funding to senior benefits and to heating assistance, so we’re trying to make sure that a little bit of that windfall of funding goes to people who most need it. We also expanded the infant learning program. We’re one of the last states to change our criterion from 50% delay to 25% delay. So, until we made this change, an Alaskan toddler, say a two-year-old, has to be functioning at a one-year-old level to get support through the infant learning program. We’ve now made that a 25% delay instead of 50% so kids who really need it will get help sooner. There’s one other great thing for Sitka: if the price of oil stays above $80 a barrel up through the first half of FY 27 – so that would basically be the rest of this calendar year – we’ll be able to finish up with the request for the Mariculture Training Facility that they have there, and say, I think it was half funded last year, and the other half will come this year, if that price of oil stays strong. And then there are some upgrades, also for the Craig to Klawock bike path, the Kake Ferry Terminal Rehabilitation, Kake Road resurfacing, Sitka airport lighting, and the Klawock Master Plan update. So, again, that relief or that help support is being shared across the region. I’m really grateful for that, and then my personal legislation that got through, I had a few get through, but for well over a decade, the Alaska Invasive Species Partnership has said the number one thing the state can do, apart from funding – funding always helps – but apart from funding, the number one thing we can do is provide, create a state council on invasive species, and that bill was a Senate bill that was in companion to my House bill, got through, and so that will be pending with the governor very soon, and that will, I think, you know, we have Elodea and Northern Pike, not where it should be, but for us here in Southeast, it’s definitely going to be green crabs are something that we’re really needing to take a closer look at.

CoastAlaska: All right. Well, is there anything you wanted to touch on with fisheries in the session?

Himschoot: Yeah, something that I’m really excited about is a bill that, when I first came to Petersburg and met with the Petersburg Vessel Owners Association, I was learning my way in fisheries – I still am – but they were very clear that the conflict of interest bill would be beneficial, and that bill passed and was signed into law this year. So that means that when you have somebody with expertise on the Board of Fisheries, they will be able to deliberate, which they couldn’t previously. They just will not be able to vote, and I think there’s a bit of a question mark on whether they’ll be able to amend, but for right now, we know that they’ll at least be able to stay at the table, so that the entire board can benefit from their expertise, experience. So, that, I think, was a really big deal, because that bill’s been around something like a decade, so that was a good one to get through. And then we have somebody on the Board of Fisheries again from Southeastern Alaska, it’s somebody who worked for EC Phillips and Ketchikan and is now in mariculture, Paul Cyr. So I’m really excited to have another Southeast voice on the Board of Fisheries again.

The Sitka School District approved a budget Thursday night that cuts 8.5 positions, half of which are certified teachers. Like other districts across the state, Sitka’s revenue hasn’t met higher costs in recent years. But the cuts are far fewer than were proposed.

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Sixteen staff positions were on the chopping block, including several certified teachers. The proposal followed the district cutting 16 positions in 2024.

For this round of cuts, the administration proposed several options. Board member Courtney Amundson was not satisfied with any of them.

“Every time you cut a teaching position at a secondary level, elective and specialized courses disappear,” she said. “This affects students who may be disengaged from core academics but thrive in arts or career technical education.”

Amundson proposed an amendment – decreasing savings – keeping just about $200,000 dollars in reserves. She argued that it’s manageable and would save three certified teachers and half a secretary’s position.

“I have hope that under new [state] leadership, we will have an increase to funding in general,” Amundson said. “Will that keep up with inflation? I don’t know. Will that be sufficient to cover our needs? I don’t know. Does this balance our budget for the long term? No, it doesn’t. It gets us through this year until we have more information under a new leadership regime.”

Hope. That’s what the decision hinged on – how much hope the school board has in getting future funding from the state and federal governments, and how little they can get by with in their savings account.

School Board President Phil Burdick said the district has managed its finances well and is doing the best it can.

“I hate hope sandwiches, because there’s really nothing in them. It’s just like air,” Burdick said. “It’s not that we’ve always done it this way, and we need to change. It’s that we are handcuffed and we can’t change if the Legislature doesn’t forward fund us, we don’t know how much money we have.”

They’re also hoping for federal money through the Secure Rural Schools program, which funds communities near national forests. Districts in Alaska didn’t get the money last year, but President Donald Trump has approved the funding for three years.

However, promises weren’t enough for a few board members, who voted against fewer staff cuts. Tom Williams said that having only $200,000 in savings wasn’t enough for the what-ifs.

“You’re hoping that we’re going to get those from the Legislature, a one-time amount for this year. I find that budgeting in that manner is irresponsible,” he said. ” It’s going to get us to a point where we’re going to have a failure, and somewhere we’re going to need a bailout.”

The district is counting on funding yet to come. However, Superintendent Deidre Jenson said that’s always the case.

“We always budget approximately from the year prior, and then we don’t get it until May. That’s just the way Secure Rural Schools work,” Jenson said. “We always operate off of what’s anticipated.”

The district considered another way to save money: making health insurance for employees more expensive. That didn’t gain any ground with the board.

Ultimately, they approved the budget scenario that cuts 8.5 positions on a 3 to 2 vote, with Tom Williams and Amanda Williams voting no. They wanted to cut more positions to keep more money in savings.

Travelers can now schedule ferry rides with the Alaska Marine Highway System for May through September. That’s after the summer schedule opened for booking Feb. 12.         

The schedule looks a lot like recent years, with six of the state’s nine vessels sailing. There is not enough funding or staffing to run them all, said Shannon McCarthy, spokesperson for the state Department of Transportation.

“Our crew is relatively stable right now, but, you know, it’s not expanding rapidly,” McCarthy said. “Our budget is also a concern this year, so we will only be running one of the mainliners at any given time.”

Only one mainliner – the Columbia – is scheduled to travel weekly through Southeast to Bellingham, Washington. That means a round trip every two weeks for most residents.

McCarthy said the Kennicott will be on standby in case the Columbia needs repairs.

“The nice thing is, it is much better to have two vessels — main liners — that are able to be sailed at any point,” she said. “It puts the state in a much better position.”

The Tustumena will sail the southwest region between Homer and the Aleutians. That’s roughly two round trips per week from Homer to Kodiak, and one full Aleutian Chain run per month.

The day boat, Leconte will sail Prince William Sound. And Lynn Canal will be similar to last year, with the Hubbard doing nearly daily runs between Juneau, Haines, and Skagway.

U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski helped secure hundreds of millions in federal ferry funds over the last five years. But the state is now waiting on a key federal grant for this year. DOT Commissioner Ryan Anderson is scheduled to be in DC this week to talk to the Alaska Delegation about it.

“Because this money is still available — it was written into the law,” McCarthy said. “So, we’re just trying to figure that out, to see if there is some relief there.”

With ongoing funding issues, the state is considering selling the Matanuska, a 63-year-old mainliner that’s been tied up in Ketchikan and used for housing new ferry workers. McCarthy says they’ll still be able to offer housing in the mainliner that’s not currently sailing.

Most of Southeast Alaska avoided hurricane-force winds Friday but 70-mile-an-hour gusts were recorded at Southern Admiralty Island. Sitka missed the worst of the storm as it passed south of the town.

Bud Durdle lives in Port Alexander, a remote fishing village on the southern tip of Baranof Island.

“No damage here yet that I have heard of, and usually I hear because people want me to fix it,” Durdle said. “I don’t think we’ve lost any trees yet. They’re used to it, you know? I mean, this is unusual but not that unusual.”

He said wind started to build around 10:00 a.m. and blew upwards of 40 knots by 3:00 p.m. The bay his house looks out on was “solid white” with whitecaps. Durdle said he’s the city’s “maintenance guy” but so far, the storm hasn’t created any new work for him.

Further to the south, on the western side of Prince of Wales Island, in Klawock, the city’s water treatment plant was hit by lightning. A representative of the city of about 700 people said it knocked out the plant’s automated system, and they’re manually adjusting and backwashing the water. The city is working to resolve the issue with Anchorage-based Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.

Just south in Craig, an employee at city hall said it’s been very windy but hasn’t noticed any damaged buildings or downed trees. About an hour south, in Hydaburg, a city employee said most of the heavy winds were seen Thursday night.

Around noon, the weather service forecasted gusts up to 90 knots in Port Protection, but it didn’t materialize.

Ben Houdek lives in a cabin in Port Protection, a small community on the northern tip of Prince of Wales Island where big bodies of water converge by Sumner Straight. He said it’s a “notoriously bad weather spot” but this storm forecast was exceptionally bad. He and his neighbors braced for sustained winds forecasted up to 50 knots.

As of about 3 p.m. Houdeck hadn’t heard of any catastrophic damage in the community. And while so far, so good, he described a “quiet anxiety” for him and his neighbors, waiting and wondering if a gust would last long enough to knock down trees or cause a boat to break free.

He said the surge was building all day, with big gusts of wind every 10 minutes or so, and the tide coming up higher than it should be. Through the rain on his windows, he could see whitecaps all around in the bay, trees whipping around and boats pulling hard on their lines. 

“It’s intense. It’s a disconcerting feeling when they pound,” Houdeck said. And it’s also kind of cool. I mean, it’s exciting, and it’s cool to sit, sip your coffee by the wood stove at the window and feel like you’re having an adventure just watching the wind blow and the waves crash but still on edge, sitting in your living room with your extra tufts on, ready to run outside and deal with whatever might come down in the storm.

He said, “hopefully we just get to watch the waves crash and then it dissipates, and call our neighbors and make sure everybody’s house is fine and there ya go.”

Houdek said it’s a little strange to have such an intense storm in September. And the National Weather Service in Juneau agrees, telling folks it’s not typical for this time of year. “This system is definitely not typical for this time of year or just in general for this area … this is a lot stronger than what we would typically see,” the service said in a noon update.

Around the same time, lightning struck about 10 miles from Wrangell Harbor, according to the Emergency Alert System. The broadcast message told all mariners to find safe harbor.

Harbor Master Steve Miller said it didn’t affect the town’s harbors, but he has staff watching the boats at the three harbors until 11 p.m. Friday. They’re looking for bad tie-up lines and vessels submerged low in the water, plus infrastructure in the ports and harbors. Though Wrangell experienced wind gusts nearing 50 mph, he said five miles out at Shoemaker Harbor, the wind barely blew.

“It’s kind of weird that it really blew here in town at our harbor,” Miller said. “But Shoemaker was a little blustery, but it wasn’t like the, you know, 40 plus mile an hour gusts were getting in town here.

There is a high wind warning in effect until 10 p.m. Friday for Wrangell and Petersburg, and 7 p.m. for communities on Baranof and Prince of Wales Islands.

Thunderstorms are expected Friday evening in Ketchikan, with the strongest winds hitting earlier in the day. Greg Karlik, Ketchikan’s assistant fire chief, urges people to stay indoors in the event of thunderstorms.

“You definitely want to be inside for that,” he said. “As far as your household items go, everything should be on surge protectors, if at all possible, or unplug them if for possible, if lightning strikes.”

The weather service suspects seas in the Gulf of Alaska reached 32 to 35 feet Friday, but they’re still collecting data from buoys in the region.

Southeast Alaska’s annual economic conference is taking place in Sitka this week. For three days, people from around the region will explore economic drivers like tourism and the seafood industry. One of the sessions on Tuesday looked at economic factors like jobs, wages, and business challenges. The region has seen steady job growth over the last five years, but the workforce isn’t keeping up.

The problem points to a demographic shift, according to Meilani Schijvens, owner of the Juneau-based research and consulting firm, Rain Coast Data. She presented at the conference.

“Our number one economic problem is declining younger people,” she said.

Most of the region’s jobs are in the government sector including federal, state, local, and tribal. That’s followed by tourism, healthcare, and then seafood.

But there aren’t enough young people to fill the jobs. The region is aging – in Petersburg, seniors 65 and older make up a quarter of the population.

Schijvens said the region lost 7,700 kids and working age residents in the last decade.

“For Southeast Alaska to prosper in the future, we must focus on attracting and retaining a vibrant future population now,” she said.

Retention is a major issue. Last year, more people moved out of Juneau than moved in. Wrangell lost nearly 30% of its workforce over the last 10 years.

The top three reasons young people leave? Lack of affordable housing, the high cost of living, and lack of affordable childcare – in that order. The average price of a home in Juneau is $503, 354, and in Sitka it’s $485, 334.

Schijvens said the region’s demographics aren’t expected to change in the coming years.

“We’ve mapped it out, you know 25 years, and we still have a region without the young people and the workforce that we need,” Schijvens said. “So, the only way out of this issue is to build, build, build housing.”

The Southeast Conference continues in Sitka through Thursday.

A draft of the 20-year plan for Alaska’s state ferry system is open for public comment. Officials with the Alaska Department of Transportation are asking residents to weigh in on the plan that will guide the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) through the year 2045.

The long-range plan seeks to increase service to over 30 ports. In recent years, port calls have decreased and coastal communities have repeatedly voiced their concern.

In an online public meeting March 19, AMHS Director Craig Tornga said they’re planning for more reliable service – not increasing it much but bringing it back to pre-pandemic levels.

“We’re really looking at trying to increase the port calls at our current communities and to make sure that we have some reliable service on a regular basis that can be planned,” said Tornga, “and then keeping it as efficient as we can from a cost perspective for the state, so it can be maintainable going forward.”

The state plans to build new hybrid ferries to replace the aging fleet, hire more workers to run them, and improve infrastructure at the ports.

That, plus regular maintenance, will cost about $3 billion. The plan to pay for it includes a combination of state and federal money along with increasing profits from ridership.

In creating the plan, the state hired engineering and research groups to crunch data and gather information from dozens of coastal communities. Economist Katie Berry said the ferry plan anticipates the state to appropriate roughly $120 million a year in operating costs. The 20-year plan also calculates that federal funding remains intact.

“The expectation is that the federal funding sources that have pre-dated the Federal Infrastructure Act will be stable over this time period,” Berry said.

The Infrastructure Law brought in about $700 million in federal funds to the ferry system in the last three years. Meanwhile, Governor Mike Dunleavy has vetoed millions in state ferry funding that the Alaska Legislature approved.

Efforts for a long-range plan began in 2022 after the Legislature created the Alaska Marine Highway Operations Board to help guide the state’s DOT. The nine-member board is made up of state workers and coastal residents with ferry knowledge.

The public comment period on the long-range plan ends March 30. The operations board will consider the plan in April before it heads to the Legislature. According to state law, the plan will be updated every five years.

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This winter’s ferry schedule is again impacted by an old fleet needing maintenance. One ferry will be designated for Southeast’s main line route, stopping in eight communities from Skagway to Bellingham, Washington. The round trip takes about a week.

There will be no mainline service Dec. 1-11 when the Columbia replaces the Kennicott. The 50-year-old Columbia has been in maintenance all summer. The much younger Kennicott will go in for service to replace its generators.

The work will take nearly a year, according to Alaska Department of Transportation spokesperson Sam Dapcevich.

“When it goes offline, it goes into a federal project to replace its generators, which has to do with emissions and efficiency,” he said. So that’s going to be a long project. It’ll be out for about 11 months. So, the Columbia will be the mainliner all the way up until next winter.”

Communities off the main route, like Sitka, will see one ferry a week going either north or south. In other words, it would be a nine-day round trip from Sitka to Juneau.

That’s a far cry from how it used to be with twice-a-week service, according to Melissa Wileman who works for the City and Borough of Sitka.

“It’s our highway within Southeast Alaska, and that’s what folks aren’t understanding,” she said.

Residents used to ferry their vehicles to Costco in Juneau for supplies that Sitka doesn’t have, Wileman said.

“The highway is–was–the Alaska Marine Highway System for quite some time and ferrying back and forth between our little communities. And that opportunity is dwindling. . . and dwindled,” she said.

Sitka is one of Alaska’s larger communities, with a population of over 8,000. It’s on Baranof Island where Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium or SEARHC is building a new hospital. Wileman said the recent marine highway schedules restrict access to healthcare.

“With Sitka poised to become the SEARHC hub soon, there’s a clear opportunity for the ferry system to increase the ridership here and to help assist with those transportation needs for those folks from smaller communities to Sitka,” Wileman said.

One of those communities is Kake, located south of Sitka on another island. Kake can’t get to Sitka via ferry, at least not directly. Residents will see one round trip to Juneau per month this winter. Kake doesn’t have jet service, only small planes. However, resident Robin Ross said that tickets for small planes are more expensive than ferries, and they don’t run in bad weather.

“You know how the weather is in Southeast,” Ross said. “Sometimes the weather’s out for two, three days, from snow, fog, no planes, and we have people waiting for meds. “[They] miss their very important hospital appointments too because of the weather in the wintertime.”

Ross grew up in Kake and now works at the school. She said she sees students missing events because they can’t travel, which wasn’t a problem when she was in high school 20 years ago.

“We were able to go on all our trips, ferry to ferry, staying in the budget, and it was a lot cheaper,” said Ross. “Now it’s really hard to get out anywhere. Just to get our kids out for cross country, our high school for regionals, it’s going to cost us 12k.”

In past decades, two ports connected Alaska to the Lower 48 – Bellingham, Washington and Prince Rupert, British Columbia. However, the Prince Rupert port has been off-limits for five years because of disputes between Alaska and Canada.

Dapcevich said the state’s marine highway system plans to reconnect with Prince Rupert, but they don’t have a timeline yet. The dock needs to be fixed first, he said.

“There are international issues regarding how funding can be spent for those projects that have to be reconciled between the two countries,” Dapcevich said. “And it has to do with, whether we purchase U.S. steel for the project or Canadian steel, and it gets a little bit complicated there.”

The 60-year-old Tustumena will be offline for three months of maintenance beginning Jan. 1. So, there will be no service for Kodiak, Homer, and the Aleutians in southwest Alaska during that time. The LeConte goes offline Oct. 1 through April 1 for an overhaul and the Hubbard will cover the Northern Panhandle communities during that time.

Sitka continued to experience a wide internet and cell service outage Friday. Nearly all Sitkans use GCI for both services, but that went out Thursday shortly after 11 a.m. On Friday, GCI said in a statement posted to social media that they are investigating a break in a subsea fiber optic cable. 

The company said technicians were working to temporarily reroute Sitka’s internet traffic with hopes to restore basic voice and text service and limited internet sometime Friday. 

Emergency services are still available. The Sitka Police Department announced that it is still receiving 911 calls from both landlines and cell phones. Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center’s emergency room is still open, and they are accepting local patients but are diverting other communities from sending in patients until internet access is restored. 

Tricia Bruckbauer is a spokesperson for Alaska Airlines. In an interview with KCAW, she said that all Alaska Airlines regularly scheduled flights are operating normally. The airline flew in an IT tech Friday morning to restore some internet access for their local site by installing Starlink, which is satellite internet. Before Starlink was installed, they were able to check in passengers in Sitka this/Friday morning through the Juneau station. 

A representative from the Sitka Trial Court told KCAW that they cannot access online filings, which is slowing things down, but as of Friday, they were still holding court proceedings as scheduled. 

The last time Sitka experienced a major internet outage was in 2016. At the time, KCAW reported that service was impacted for 12 days due to a damaged fiber optic cable. In its statement on Friday, GCI did not confirm where the current break is located or how it occurred. 

UPDATED: 11:25 a.m.

Most internet and cell services remain down in Sitka – the outage started Thursday morning shortly after 11 a.m.

Sitkans who contacted the GCI customer service line to report the widespread outage got a message that QUOTE “GCI is aware of the outage that is affecting internet and TV service within the O’Malley area in Anchorage and Sitka.”

Sitka had 4,000 cruise passengers on Thursday. Many businesses said they had to resort to cash-only transactions to make sales. 

Around 2 p.m. on Thursday, the lights were on at the AT&T store in downtown Sitka, but the door was locked, and a sign on the door read “Network down, No ETA.”

But not every network is down. Melissa Wileman is the public and government affairs director at Sitka City Hall. She said the city is using Starlink as a backup internet provider, and it’s working right now. 

Wileman said the city got some information about the outage from GCI after their IT Director reached out. She said they’re working as hard as possible to get things back up and running. 

Sitka’s internet outage is impacting local medical services. The regional healthcare provider, Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, announced that until internet service is restored, Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center is canceling elective surgeries. SEARHC is also diverting emergency patients from outside communities for the time being. The emergency room, however, remains open to Sitkans in need of emergency services. Urgent Care is open, and primary care patients can attend their appointments. SEARHC anticipates appointments will take longer than usual due to the outage, and only urgent prescriptions will be filled. 

The last time Sitka experienced a major internet outage was in 2016. At the time, KCAW reported that service was impacted for 12 days due to a damaged fiber optic cable at the bottom of the sea floor. So far, the reason for this outage is unclear.

The GCI outage has affected KCAW’s streaming service and broadcasting to KCAW’s translator communities as well. 

KCAW’s streaming is temporarily down and broadcasting to KCAW’s translator communities as well. “GCI is aware of the outage that is affecting internet and TV service within the O’Malley area in Anchorage and Sitka,” GCI said in a statement.