LANE COUNTY, Ore. — People living in the McKenzie River Valley, just about 50 miles east of Eugene, are still recovering from the devastating Holiday Farm Fire that swept through their area in early September.
But thanks to the group Oregon Internet Response, communities in that area have had access to the internet despite telecommunications infrastructure getting wiped out, isolating entire communities of people. Oregon Internet Response is made up of almost 30 individuals, all from various backgrounds. Many of them work in the technology industry.
Lane Tompkins, superintendent and principal of the McKenzie School District, said he’s got students who are still displaced, living in Eugene or other areas outside the McKenzie River Valley.
“About a third of our staff lost their homes and about a quarter of our students ended up losing their homes,” said Tompkins.
Add distance learning with no internet and it’s an even more difficult situation. That’s why he said he’s grateful to volunteers with Oregon Internet Response for their help in restoring connectivity in October right after the fire tore through.
When it comes to how the internet was restored, the story is somewhat complex.
Geoff Turner, who heads up the group, said it’s made up of individuals who all initially came together to help the Red Cross.
“Deploying IT infrastructure for their recovery locations up and down I-5 to the Medford area,” said Turner.
Then, they heard about the need in the McKenzie River Valley, where telecommunications had been taken out.
“About 27 miles of fiber that was burned, and that was the only communication in the area,” he said.
“Got together and said, ‘hey there’s a need out here. Is there something we can do as a team?’ It’s a bunch of people who got together as internet nerds and search and rescue people,” Turner said.
After hundreds of hours planning and studying the mountainous topography of the area, they figured out a plan.
Their first hurdle was figuring out where to get the internet.
Bend Broadband stepped into help, donating bandwidth.
“Our next challenge was how do we get it to the McKenzie Valley,” said Turner.
Bend Broadband shot a wireless link to the top of Hoodoo Ski Area. Then from there, another wireless link was sent to a tower at Carmen Smith Reservoir, then to Belknap Bluff and finally to Castle Rock, an old fire lookout.
The Oregon Internet Response team was able to get special permission from the Forest Service to access Castle Rock, a location critical to establishing an internet connection for the community.
The team also got help from some young men attending a basketball academy in Blue River. They volunteered to hike up steep terrain to transport batteries, solar panels, wood boards and other gear.
The first to receive internet access were members of the U.S. Forest Service. Their communications had also burned in the fire, and Turner said it was crucial their communications were restored because fire was still burning the area. Forest Service tree climbers were innovative in order to get their fire command back online. Without a tower tall enough to access a signal, they instead climbed up a tall tree to mount a dish.
After getting the Forest Service connected again, orange, metal Wi-Fi hotspot boxes were placed throughout the communities of McKenzie Bridge, Blue River and Rainbow.
“Put a little QR code on the side of it so people could walk up to it and scan it on their phone and get onto the wireless network,” said Turner.
“You’d drive around the community, you’d see cars huddled around these big orange boxes,” Tompkins said.
Even now, five months after the fire, Tompkins said the school district is still using the Oregon Internet Response team’s high capacity connection.
“We’re just thankful they were here for us when we needed them,” said Tompkins.
At this point, some services are just starting to come back online.
Only until telecommunications companies in the area are able to fully restore service will the Oregon Internet Response Team start disassembling.
Turner is the CEO of Elevate Technology Group. His company deals with connectivity, cyber security and cloud services. He said while his company donated a lot of gear or loaned it out, there were a lot of companies and individuals who were involved in the effort.
In addition to community members helping, a number of companies also chipped in, including Bend Broadband, Hoodoo Ski Area, EWEB (which owns Carmen Smith Reservoir and Belknap Bluff), IOIOBox (which donated the metal Wi-Fi boxes) and PDX Wraps (which helped with the orange wrapping around the metal boxes). Comcast is not a local provider for the area, but Turner said the company was also critical to helping extend some burned fiber, which allowed the group to bring connectivity to the Upper McKenzie Bridge area.
“These groups of people came together, tower climbers came together, companies donated time so that they would be covered under insurance and make sure they were safe,” said Turner.
