The Internet went down! How did we survive?

Like with the OJ verdict, the moon landing, or the day Covid locked us all down, it is likely everyone in the valley will remember where they were at 10:26 a.m. on Monday, August 10 — the time much of the Internet and many of the phones went down for the rest of the day (and beyond) in Crested Butte, Gunnison and most of the valley. The horror!

I was at my house preparing to go to the office and knew something was wrong. Voodoo signs were popping up everywhere. A smokey haze covered the sun, a warm breeze was blowing in CB (that never happened in the old days) the barking dogs in the neighborhood went quiet and I heard the Forest Queen was going to open before Christmas (sure). My first thought: How many funny racoon videos will I miss between writing stories at work? What’s up with Jimothy?

While service came back for some relatively quickly Monday — oh the beauty of Xtream and Starlink — those on the Spectrum and AT&T wagon (me at work) were still spinning their wheels well into the next day. Dang, how would I keep up with Bronco training camp before the first preseason game on Friday from someone I’ve never heard of? Luckily a few weeks ago I felt compelled at home to help the world’s richest man put a few more dollars in his pocket and got on the service where cutting a fiber optic line wasn’t much of a worry (I think).

Heading to the CB cemetery Monday to take a photo to go with a letter from an old-timer family (see page 8), my phone blinged on. Not sure why there was one sudden hotspot, but it reminded me there was usually one place people could get service in CB. So, after taking my award-winning photo, I went by the Old Rock where there were people on the benches and picnic tables tied into one of the few public places the Internet was working. There were young people and old on their phones and on laptops, soaking up the invisible link to the world. The dude behind the building seemed to be scanning a new set of Reels showing video proof of U.S. senators meeting with nine-foot-tall aliens. On Tuesday morning, Crank’s Plaza at the Old Rock was packed. Someone described it as a weird ‘silent disco’ feel with lots of people together but with little actual interaction and no conversation. What’s going to happen when AI takes us all over?!

Given a few blips of service and the ability to occasionally pirate an Xstream account in the work neighborhood (with permission), I did get a glimpse that Donald was now requiring what was one vaccination should now be three or four separate ones…because everyone knows that little kids love it when strangers stick needles into their arm. That’ll bring them back to the doctor’s office like a dog running excitedly to the vet clinic after getting porcupine quills removed from its mouth! Genius.

And we apparently won the Iran war, again, while our Internet was down. We just have to give the Supreme Leader all our money, learn to speak Farsi and say ‘pretty please’ when asking about the Strait that was open to the world free of charge six months ago. Sounds like Donald is ready to “declare victory” and get the heck out of that mess that somehow Joe Hussein Kamala got us into. The master deal maker at work! Did Donald skip the vaccine as a kid to ward off the dumbs (with a b)?

Honestly, it was a weird Monday without the Interwebs. I wasn’t sure what to do without checking in on my go-to influencer Bella Hadid. Did my buddy Mark Walter sell something? I found out on the Internet on Wednesday that yes he did. At work, those with opinions didn’t let a little Internet hiccup stop them. They found workarounds to get their letters here to the CB News. Through various methods we received letters on Lower Verzuh, the CB second home tax, the sheriff’s change of heart with ICE, the proposed Mt. CB STR tax, and Flock cameras in Gunnison County. Opinions will not be thwarted by a small Internet outage — thank goodness!

There were obviously challenges that come with not having habitual easy access to almost everything. Some really depend on the Internet for work and family. It was less a laughing matter to them, but it seemed most people met the challenge and work got done and communication was had even though it wasn’t in the usual way. A little unannounced respite from the rest of the chaotic world was probably okay for most.

The actual word is that a fiber cable was cut somewhere between Montrose and Gunnison. A splice crew from Durango was sent up to get it all working again. That’s a five-hour journey so darkness stopped them Monday night. It was working basically 25 hours after it started, and a communal collective ding was heard around the valley when AT&T and Spectrum returned to work about 11:34 Tuesday morning. Maybe that’s the moment when people will remember where they were in this calamity since the dings took about 30 seconds to become annoying as computers and phones caught up to a day’s worth of e-communication. Anyway, thanks to the crews that came in to fix the spaghetti strands.

My only fear now is that the funniest cat video ever has already been deleted before I had a chance to see it. The horror!

— Mark Reaman