LAKE OSWEGO, Ore. — A group of people living in a Lake Oswego neighborhood said they hadn't had CenturyLink internet service since February's winter ice storm. After KGW's inquiry, neighbors reported service had come back on Wednesday evening.
Sarah Williams, in the Hallinan area, reached out to KGW this week to share concerns that the internet issue had persisted a month.
She shared photos from mid-February's storm showing damage around her neighbors' homes, with trees and branches brought down from snow and ice.
Another impacted customer, Katie Abbott, said neighbors tried to reach CenturyLink to make repairs. She said although many had connected with customer service, the issues were not resolved.
"Out of the 10 neighbors who were with CenturyLink, I know three have already given up and gone to another provider because they needed to get back to work and school," Abbott said. "Our family continues to kind of piece together our internet work through hot spots and phones for school and work, which is not ideal."
KGW reached out to CenturyLink on Wednesday, to pass along the neighborhood concerns and get more information. A spokesperson for the company responded, saying in part: "This is an area hit especially hard by the ice storm. We have been working diligently to repair damages to our facilities and communications equipment since the storm impacted the area. We are hoping to have internet services restored by end of day."
Neighbors followed up with KGW Wednesday evening to confirm CenturyLink's service was restored.
Both Abbott and Williams said this was the first such response from CenturyLink to acknowledge the neighborhood issue that they had seen. Both said communication was the biggest challenge while they waited for repairs, but are happy to have service back.
"The folks fixing the lines and driving the neighborhoods have all been really nice and even sympathetic to our challenges," Abbott said. "But often they are locked into just solving the problem they are handed and don't know any more about the bigger response than we do."
"But a fix is a fix!" Williams added.