Communications After a Disaster

Hurricane Hellene arrived in Asheville (NC) on the evening of September 26. However, there was a big precursor to the storm, and we had over 15 inches of rain in September before the storm got here. That means the ground was fully saturated, the streams were already running at near-flood conditions, and lakes and reservoirs were already full. Practically everybody in the county lost power during the night—mostly due to downed power lines, but a few electric substations were badly damaged, and one was obliterated by floods. Without power, broadband, and cellular, we were cut off from the outside world. Cellphones stayed in SOS mode for three days. AT&T cellphones, which I have, were the first to come back, but with only one bar. I was able to sporadically text, but I couldn’t open emails or websites. A few calls made it out, but it seemed nobody could call me. It was several more days for Verizon cellphones, and a few more after that for T-Mobile phones. I got a nice text from AT&T that said, “If you are impacted by the hurricane, don’t worry about going over your talk, text, and data limits on this line. To help you stay safe, we won’t charge you for overages for 30 days.” We heard nothing from my ISP Charter during this time. When we were finally able to reach the web, the Charter site would only concur that our address was out of service – nothing else. We got the first communications from Charter on the 17^th day after the hurricane when we got an automated voicemail that said that every Charter customer with power would get broadband by October 19. I am fully sympathetic of the time needed to repair the network—Charter couldn’t get to wires until after the electric company. But I am not happy about the total lack of communication with customers.