The Jefferson County Public utility District announced on its Facebook page April 15 that it had installed a Wi-Fi hotspot at its Chimacum substation on Chimacum Road, across from The Keg & I. “We opened the gates at the road to make it easy to access the lot,” the PUD Facebook post read, before the page’s maintainer told a commenter that the PUD was “only working on setting up a few hotspots (that) week,” with “more locations to come!”

The PUD Facebook page went on to say the utility was “hoping to do one in Gardiner too,” before pointing out that “more internet access to the unserved areas in this county will take a lot longer.”

Will O'Donnell, communications manager for the PUD, explained the hotspots were inspired by the COVID-19 outbreak.

“Our first hotspot is located outside of our customer service office at 210 Four Corners Road,” O’Donnell said April 17. “The first two were very quick and easy, and were essentially test sites. “We’re looking to do four or more during the next week or so.”

O’Donnell credited PUD General Manager Kevin Streett with putting this project into motion, and noted that Jefferson County is following other PUDs across the state as they put up hotspots of their own.

The PUD’s Supervisory Control, Data Acquisition and Substation Technician Colton Worley is doing the installations, while Information Technology Manager Kris Lott manages and monitors the networks.

“Internet access is more important than ever,” O’Donnell said. “The Jefferson County PUD is working to add Wi-Fi hotspots around the county in the next few weeks, to help those without access to the internet at home to have locations to go where they can connect to the internet from their cars.”

To connect to a hotspot for free 24/7 in the parking lots, select “JeffPUD_Community” from the available Wi-Fi signals displayed on your device.