News Photo by Steve Schulwitz Someone gestures to a dark computer screen on Wednesday. There were a lot of dark computer screens in Northeast Michigan for the last week and a half, after an ice storm caused a widespread electrical and internet blackout.

ALPENA — People in Northeast Michigan who depend on electricity and high-speed internet to work from home struggled to get their jobs done when internet systems failed throughout the region after the recent ice storm.

Some people say they will be paid for the days they couldn’t work, while others will lose days’ worth of income they depend on to pay their bills.

Tina Hunt lives in Alpena but works for Roots Heating and Cooling, which is stationed in Vasser. She said the internet outage forced her to miss time working, but the company stepped up to take care of her financially.

“I wasn’t able to work, but I’m fortunate that my employer understood and is paying me anyway,” she said in a Facebook message. “They are down by Vasser so it’s not like they saw the destruction. But they care. Go Roots Heating and Cooling for taking care of their employees.”

Jessica Cook is an office employee for Walmart who works from home. She said the power and internet outage forced her to miss three-and-a-half days of work. Cook said the big-box giant excused the unplanned time off, but not her loss of pay.

Doug Hendrickson works his business job from home and did his best to complete his daily tasks on his phone or a hotspot that connects to his tablet. He said that because his cell reception was hit and miss, it was hard to work normally. Now that his Spectrum internet is back online, he is tackling a large backlog of clients that need his attention and playing catch-up.

“I was without it for more than a week, and it sure wasn’t ideal,” he said. “I would drive into Alpena to get cell service and get some work done in my truck, but it wasn’t like I could take all the other things I needed from my desk with me. At home, I could barely check my email, which is the primary way I deal with business.”

Hendrickson said he is paid a commission, and he is unsure if his pay will be adjusted or if he will lose pay because of the storm.

Erin Riopelle works on musically billing for an out-of-the-area company. She said during the blackout, she had some internet access on her cell phone, but her job requires her to have wired internet for security reasons. She said her internet was restored on Tuesday, and she is able to work again, but for the five days she was unable to work, she has to use personal time off to get paid.

“I can’t be wireless for my work,” she said. “If I could, I could have come to town and did some work, but I could literally do nothing.”

Some people who were utilizing generators to power their homes were able to use Starlink for internet access, while others who have Spectrum and Frontier were totally blacked out.

Maria Lindbloom said on Facebook that without Starlink, she would have been forced to find a friend who had quality internet and stay with them so she could work.

“I work from home and just want to say thank God for Starlink,” she said. “We’re able to plug in the router to our generator and have full high-speed internet. If not for that, I would’ve been crashing at a friend’s house for a few weeks.”

Local government agencies also struggled with the internet outage.

While the power and internet were out, the Alpena County Road Commission wasn’t able to do payroll to make sure the employees who were working hard in the field could be paid. The lack of internet also left the road commission without a way to track and plan for a second storm that was forecasted to hit the Alpena area.

That is when Alpena County Sheriff Erik Smith took action and found a way to provide needed internet.

Smith took one of the county’s patrol cars, which are equipped with modems powered by Verizon, and allowed the road connections computers to connect to it. Smith said the sheriff’s office left the car there for a couple of days so the employees could get paid and so important alerts about the storm wouldn’t be missed.

“We linked it to the office and it ran everything from the car,” Smith said. “It is not the first time the cars have helped us out in a jam. One time, we lost the internet at the sheriff’s office because of a cut fiber line, and we were able to use it until our regular internet was restored.”

Smith said all of the county’s patrol cars have the internet modems and deputies use them to connect to laptops. He said the police run background checks, check license plates, check bulletins, and more with the electronics.

Steve Schulwitz can be reached at 989-358-5689 or sschulwitz@TheAlpenaNews.com. Follow him on X @ss_alpenanews.com.