As hundreds of wildfires continue to ravage communities throughout the NWT, internet and data communication services have been greatly impacted by damage to key infrastructure in the territory.
Communities such as Hay River, Enterprise, and Fort Smith lost internet on Monday leading to a complete collapse in communication for those areas, causing major concern for residents attempting to evacuate.
As a wildfire continues to creep closer to the City of Yellowknife, several residents have raised concerns regarding what might happen for the capital, if communication services were interrupted; however, telecommunications provider Northwestel says they are prepared.
“We are in a state of readiness and we are working through plans with respect to Yellowknife,” Northwestel CFO Imran Khan tells MyTrueNorthNow. “Right now our focus is getting services turned up for all the communities that are currently impacted,” he adds.
According to the City of Yellowknife, plans are in place to effectively communicate with residents should a communication collapse take place.
“At the end of the day the thing to know is how the City will communicate in the case that there is an evacuation, there will be the notices on your cell phone, the City’s website is actually hosted in Ontario so it wouldn’t be impacted, and we’d go door to door, we’d have sirens going if need be,” Yellowknife Mayor Rebecca Alty tells MyTrueNorthNow.
