Dude, Where's My Internet?

Yesterday and today have really been bad for Treasure Island infrastructure. We've been under a boil water order owing to an emergency repair. That's a little hard to do since the electricity has gone off both days and I have an electric stove. At the same time Atlantic Broadband has so far not been able to restore internet service on Hispanola which has been down since yesterday. They intermittently express confusion and claim that it's not out, but then they cop to it. At 5:30 PM, they had the repair trucks out.

Kudos to the city for the response to the city for keeping us informed about the water problem. I've received two written notices and when I got to Starbucks to check my email, I saw an email from the city on the subject.

On the power outage, not so much. When the power goes out, the traffic lights fail and the morons on the causeway speed up. It's hard enough to drive but there are actual, real live pedestrians who cross the causeway. Neither yesterday nor today was there any sign of the North Bay Village police at the major intersections watching out for us. Maybe they were busy.

For years, Treasure Island residents have expressed frustration at the unreliable power and in particular the overhead lines. While the city has spent millions on improvements like the sad park on Harbor Island, oak trees and bulb outs, and in improving the apartheid wall surrounding the inmates of North Bay Island, this has been rebuffed every time.

Yet improving the power and communications structure and burying the lines would be the most noticeable improvement. A more reliable power infrastructure with a healthy variety of high speed internet options would make the city more usable to the residents. An FPL representative told us two years ago that burying the power lines would not help the power outage problems but that was bull hockey. She could not cite any statistics on the subject.

What it would help is our property values as the power lines are flat out ugly and present a serious safety hazard in high wind storms. Let's get it done.

(written at Starbucks, 69th and Biscayne Blvd.)

Kevin Vericker
April 7, 2012