>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

COVE — The mighty power of nature to disrupt the lives of the insignificant human being is being felt throughout the Grande Ronde Valley this week. One unexpected and annoying byproduct of the current weather continues to hamper residents in Cove and North Powder.

A fierce blast of icy sleet and high winds followed by nearly 10 inches of snow that fell Sunday interrupted wireless Internet service to approximately 150 households in both communities.

Folks who called wireless provider Eastern Oregon Net Inc. on Monday hoping for good news got an icy blast of reality instead — the interruption in service, they were told, is probably due to weather-related problems with the equipment located on the Mount Fanny tower. No quick fix there.

On Monday, EONI’s technicians replaced the radio communication link equipment in La Grande hoping that could be the problem, said EONI’s Jeff Crews. But the signal remained weak. The next inevitable step, Crews added, is a trip up Mount Fanny to check the source.

“Since we cannot visually look out and see what is going on at the Mount Fanny tower site, we are going to hitch a ride up with the OPB engineering group on Thursday in their Snowcat,” said Crews.

Oregon Public Broadcasting’s transmission equipment is located in the same area as EONI’s tower, and OPB makes monthly site inspections.

At that time, Crews added, they will be able to see what is causing the problem, resolve it if they can, or make a list of parts and schedule another trip up the mountain.

Crews said he didn’t have any idea how much snow was up there, but guessed it could be anywhere from 5 to 10 feet depending on drift. According to the Natural Resource Conservation Service’s SNOTEL site report for Moss Springs, the nearest site, the Wednesday snowpack depth there measured a total of 66.5 inches — more than 5 1/2 feet.

Crews said he is hoping for a simple fix. And since there has been so much snow, the problem could be one of moisture.

“That would just be a matter of ice buildup on the equipment on top of the tower,” he said.

He doesn’t anticipate any trouble with the actual tower, which he says has been in place for many years and is solid.

The best-case scenario could mean restoration of wireless service by Thursday night, he added. But, if something has damaged one of the dishes, it will mean contracting with OPB’s Snowcat crew for a second trip up to replace the dish. That will take a few more days.

“Really, though, until we get up there and look at it, it’s really just a guess at this point,” Crews said.

For those who cannot go without Internet services until the problem is resolved, EONI is offering to look into establishing a temporary dial-up connection to those customers.