The internet -- missing in action
⏰ (A long read. Just for fun there is a narration of the article by me!)
I lost all connectivity for almost a month -- it was not easy.
The wind blows
A quick summary. On 24 January 2025, we in Scotland were hit with Storm Éowyn. The forecasters gave it a 'Red warning' for my region, which is classified as 'danger to life'. It was the strongest winds I have ever known.
At 7:44 in the morning the first tree around our house blew down -- a stunning tree, probably about 100 years old. It toppled like a matchstick. As it went from vertical to horizontal it plunged through telephone cables and connectivity was gone. About 5 minutes later there was damage further afield, which destroyed power to the entire village. During the next six hours additional trees came down, or became precariously angled. The house sustained no damage as it is a solid structure -- a 250 year old converted stable block. Small mercies.
Powerless
For the next 3 days (70 hour to be precise) thousands around the region had no power. That is hard. The house was cold, dark, and generally miserable. You rely on electricity for so much. We had a small gas camping stove and were able to make tea/coffee and heat simple foods like soup. We also did the same for neighbours who had no backup cooking option.
Batteries started to run down on torches; mobile phones and backup power-packs were exhausted. The house was full of candles in an attempt to have some light in the long evenings of winter darkness. No hot water as the boiler needed power to ignite!
But power returned. We are forever grateful to the men and women from the energy networks who worked tirelessly to repair the 10,000+ people around the region with no power. Our village a mere 200 of that.
Orange is not my favourite colour
In 2025 I decided I would wear more Orange. It's my colour of the year. It's early into the year, and I now feel the urge to despise it.
Despite the flush of power, the broadband router flashed Orange. It continued. My hope of its return was optimistic, but the Orange light taunted me.
After a few days I chased the comms company for an update. "Working on many faults" was the response. The issue dragged on.
Over the period of disconnect I had many excuses for the delay:
- We need to replace the pole.
- The job states "new pole, 100 metres of cable, traffic management".
- It's fixed.
- Call back in two days.
- It will be fixed on....
- We have no knowledge of a fault.
This dragged on, and on, and on. The village had their internet back on after restoration of the power, but four houses (including me) had a problem as the tree had taken down our line. (We did get the tree removed by a tree surgeon within a few days at a ridiculously expensive cost).
My concerns grew as to the length of time it was taking -- one week, two weeks, three weeks..... Our neighbours are elderly, and he does not keep well. They had no way to contact anyone -- mobile phones do not work indoors in our village, so we rely on phones connecting to the internet for WiFi Calling.
Our worst fears did indeed happen. Our neighbour collapsed and was unconscious for 15 minutes. His wife had no way to call anyone, unless she stood outside and waited for a signal. Luckily their carer arrived and she ran in to ask us for help. We stood in the garden and called an ambulance while she stayed with the patient. (all was well in the end, but it was a serious concern).
The day of reactivation
Needless to say, we had several fix dates which came and went. The most recent was Wednesday. That day came and went and no sign of engineers. On Thursday afternoon a lone man appeared. We saw him at the bottom of the lane we live in and ran down to speak with him.
He did not realise the job was so 'big' and he would need more men and a platform to reach the cables. Luckily he was awesome. He called his manager and explained the issue. They had more help and machinery with us within an hour. It was getting late and darkening. They were not sure if they could complete the job on that day. They were also competing with very heavy rain and cold temperatures.
Our tactic -- we did consider chaining them to the poles so they could not leave. However, in the end we chose kindness. We furnished them with hot tea and coffee and cheese and ham sandwiches.
It worked -- they stayed on until 9pm and go us all connected.
Orange-less
After 29 days of no connectivity, it was back. Our router is currently glowing red-hot with so much use 🙂
The Pain
There's no getting away from how painful that was.
I work from home -- that was impossible. I had to visit the local library, or friends, in order to reply to emails, or take video meetings. There could be no spontaneity in my work time!
We stream all our TV through the internet; no cable or satellite. My other half is a TV-a-holic. That was a struggle.
I've already mentioned the contact issues regarding medical issues.
Our electric car relies on the internet to work out the most efficient time to charge via the power grid.
Living rural, our mobile phone signal is generally poor, and non-existent in-doors. We need Wifi to make calls.
The list goes on.
Lessons?
I'm not sure we could do much to mitigate future issues. There is no getting away from the fact that we rely so much on the internet for everything.
It's a fact of life. And now I celebrate with a glass of fizz to toast the internet.
Comments?
