KTOO News Department

In this newscast:

• Homes in Juneau’s Mendenhall Valley are seeing a decline in their assessed value following last August’s glacial outburst flood.
• Juneau’s trail maintenance nonprofit, Trail Mix, wants to hire fired Forest Service employees if — it can raise enough money to pay them.
• Three heli-skiers who died in an avalanche Tuesday near Girdwood had ties to Minnesota.
• Research in marine species show they may be fixtures in the Arctic, to the interest of scientists. It may also mean changes to subsistence to Alaska’s most northern communities.

In this newscast:

• State lawmakers unveiled a revised education funding ahead of a floor debate in the House tentatively scheduled for Monday
• The City of Juneau is doing site assessments at homes to prepare for flood barrier installations
• Untried defendents – people accused of crimes but presumed innocent until found otherwise by the court – remain in jail as criminal cases take a long time to go to trial
• GCI users in Sitka will lose internet service starting Friday for up to ten days.

In this newscast:

• Temporary cell service and internet connection has most Juneau residents back online after a damaged subsea cable caused a region-wide outage late last week,
• Former Alaska Congresswoman Mary Peltola and her former chief of staff are now working for Holland and Hart, a law and lobbying firm,
• Protestors took to the streets of Gustavus on Saturday, joining hundreds of demonstrations around the country in response to staffing cuts at national parks,
• A hydroelectric project in the remote Southeast Alaska community of Angoon is on pause following the federal grant freeze announced in late January by the Trump administration,
• Leaders in the Alaska House and Senate say they’re deeply concerned about the impacts of federal staff cuts and a forthcoming congressional immigration and tax cuts bill,
• With changes to requirements by the Trump administration, it’s an uncertain time for immigrants, but the new Philippine Honorary Consul for Alaska hopes she can be of service

In this newscast:

• A damaged subsea cable is the apparent cause of the internet and cell service outage in Juneau,
• More federal workers were fired in Alaska yesterday, this time at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
• Fired Forest Service staffers in Juneau are uncertain about their futures — and the safety of visitors at the glacier,
• Lawmakers’ cost questions are stalling a bill that would offer Alaska students free meals

Juneau residents who use certain cell phone and internet carriers experienced an outage Thursday night that continued Friday. 

The outage began around 9:15 p.m. Thursday with ACS and AT&T customers reporting limited or no service throughout the area. Residents in Haines, Skagway and Gustavus also reported interruptions.

In an email Friday afternoon, ACS media contact Heather Marron confirmed that there was damage to a subsea cable system that connects Juneau, and a repair ship is on its way to restore it. Last fall, Sitka was similarly without internet for more than two weeks due to a broken subsea fiber optic cable.

Marron wrote that the company does not have a timeline for when services would be restored, but is looking at alternative ways to restore connection.  

“This is our top priority and we deeply apologize for the inconvenience. We know how important staying connected is and we will not rest until this is fixed,” Marron wrote. ” We will continue to share updates as we have more information.”

Juneau’s Deputy City Manager Robert Barr said the city’s phone lines are down, but the impacts of the outage to city functions are  “significant but not debilitating.” He suggests residents email city officials rather than call in the interim.

Juneau School District is still holding classes as normal. Superintendent Frank Hauser said Friday morning that all district schools have a copper phone line that can be used to make phone calls, but the internet has been impacted.

“Teachers are still teaching, students are still learning,” he said. “It’s just kind of going back to, the books and the manipulatives in the class. We’re just continuing to focus on educating the students, working with them and doing what we do best.”

The Juneau Police Department posted on Facebook that its administrative phone systems were affected by the outage, though 911 calls appear to be functioning normally. 

Capital City Fire/Rescue posted that some cell phones may not be able to call 911, but connecting to wifi might help. 

State employees at the State Office Building downtown and in other parts of the state reported that the outage was affecting them. The alaska.gov website was also down Friday, restricting access to a number of state resources.

Business appeared to be operating as usual despite limited phone and internet access at the Alaska State Capitol.

Today’s Senate and House floor sessions are expected to meet as regularly scheduled. #akleg

— Gavel Alaska (@gavelalaska.bsky.social) February 28, 2025 at 9:53 AM

This is a developing story. Check back for updates. 

In this newscast:

• Mining leaders had an optimistic outlook at the third annual Juneau Mining Forum this week,
• A plan to move Juneau’s city employees into the building that houses the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation downtown is inching toward reality,
• A state-run trust that owns much of the land surrounding a controversial mining project outside Haines has formally decided against purchasing federal mining claims in the area,
• Snow is melting early across large swaths of Alaska this year, which could mean a big wildfire season in certain parts of the state